An episode of Only Fools And Horses was branded so “dark and cruel” that the show’s creator banned it from airing again.
The BBC sitcom is known for being feel-good television, but an episode titled A Royal Flush veered away from comedy and became “difficult to watch”.
In A Royal Flush, the 1986 Christmas special, Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) befriends a duke’s daughter, and Del Boy (David Jason) wants to help him make a good impression.
However, as the group sits down to dinner, Del ends up drinking too much and cruelly mocks Rodney by implying that he will marry the Duke’s daughter and mentioning his conviction for cannabis possession.
While Del was known for his blatant put-downs towards Rodney in this episode, it was agreed that the scene crossed the line and Del seemed like an “out of control bully”.
An episode of Only Fools And Horses, titled A Royal Flush, was called so “dark and cruel” that the show’s creator banned it from airing again.
The BBC sitcom is known for being feel-good television, but an episode titled A Royal Flush veered away from comedy and became “hard to watch” (LR Lennard Pearce as Grandpa, David Jason as Del Boy and Nicholas Lyndhurst as Rodney).
In A Royal Flush, the 1986 Christmas special, Rodney befriends a duke’s daughter, and Del Boy wants to help him make a good impression.
The show’s creator, John Sullivan, decided to cut scenes from the final cut because “it wasn’t a good episode.”
Speaking on Channel 5 documentary, Secrets and Scandals of Only Fools and Horses, editor Chris Wadsworth shared: ‘It’s a pretty cruel dark episode.
“About 20 years later (John) said, ‘Can we do something to stop Del from being unpleasant?'”
“The episode was shown to the public to get a laugh track, but I don’t think we totally got it.”
TV producer Richard Latto added: “The original where Del Boy is quite cruel to Rodney… it’s hard to watch.”
A Royal Flush was later released on DVD in 2005, but only after “an edit by order of Sullivan”, which resulted in about 18 minutes of footage being cut.
Del star Sir David recently revealed his “true regret” for his Only Fools and Horses character and admitted he feels tormented by the role.
The actor, 84, revealed his true feelings in a candid interview on BBC Breakfast with Jon Kay this month.
Sir David, 84, recently revealed his “true regret” for the Only Fools and Horses character and admitted he feels tormented as he sat down for a BBC Breakfast interview this month.
David told the show that he feels like the ‘ghost’ of Derek Trotter is following him and explained that he feels like the character is looming over him.
The Touch of Frost star explained that the character has overshadowed her other work.
David told the show that he feels like the ‘ghost’ of Derek Trotter is following him and explained that he feels like the character is looming over him.
He said, “That Derek Trotter thing, it’s some kind of ghost that comes after me like A Christmas Carol.”
The star expressed frustration that despite a decades-long career in film and television, he is best known for playing Del Boy.
He said that the character “just leaves me behind, it just bothers me a little bit because it seems to be the only thing people remember me for.”
“In a way I’m delighted that it’s reached so many people and they’ve enjoyed what I’ve done with the character, but I’ve done so many other things that everyone seems to have forgotten. It’s like I’ve only played Derek Trotter.
David revealed that while he is not disappointed with his career, there are still many goals he has not achieved and attributed this to being followed by the ghost of his most iconic character.
The star explained: ‘My real disappointment or regret, if you will, is that I always wanted to be a National Theater actor.
‘I always wanted to be on the stage of the National Theatre. It was just that romantic image of playing those big productions with all those great, wonderful actors. That never happened.’
When host Jon suggested that he still had time to make his dream of going on stage come true, Jason responded that perhaps his time was up and explained that his memory isn’t what it used to be.
He said, ‘Well, you wonder if the old memory would be good enough. I could do it with the autocue stuff.’
But, seeming to shake off his melancholy mood, he then playfully turned to the camera and said, ‘Hey! Yes, National Theatre, I’m available!’
David revealed that while he is not disappointed with his career, there are still many goals he has not achieved and attributed this to being followed by the ghost of his most iconic character.
His admission comes after the star revealed he would be reprising his famous role.
Earlier this year, David said he would be happy to reprise the role of Del Boy, but added that a reboot would be unlikely after the hit TV series’ head writer, John Sullivan, tragically passed away in 2011.
He told The Sun of a possible reboot: “Well, to be honest, we’d really like that to happen because not only did we really enjoy it, but so did the majority of the British public.” That’s why we would love to do it.
But he added: “I don’t think we can do another episode of Only Fools And Horses because the brains behind it, Mr John Sullivan, is sadly no longer with us.”
