Original subtitles

Pick up money in me pocket.

I'll fetch the suitcase from the bank.

Cause if you want the best things but you don't ask questions, then brother,

your man.

Cause where it all comes from is a mystery.

It's like the changing of the seasons and the tides of the sea. But here's the

one who's driving me berserk.

Why do...

Only Fools and Horses is one of Britain's most loved shows on TV.

64 episodes were made between 1981 and 2003, and it's still

watched and laughed at by millions of us every week.

With every line written by just one man.

The success of Fools and Horses can be summed up with two words, and it's John

Sullivan. The story of Derek Trotter's life is the story of John Sullivan's

creative genius.

I don't think anybody really touches John for being able to make you laugh.

And being able to make you cry.

It's time next year.

We'll be millionaires.

Celebrating the wonderful comedy world of John Sullivan.

We'll be getting the inside story on the Trotters from the horse's mouth.

I was nearly fired because of that scene.

Oi! I said to John, you can't use this.

Come on, get him off!

We've also recreated some of the sets, reunited cast members, and have talked

some of the show's most famous fans.

One of the incredible things about Fools and Horses is that you can grow up

watching it. I can't remember a time before I watched any Fools and Horses.

really, really, really the best.

Over the next hour, we're going to be looking specifically at the Trotters

Friends. All right, Dave?

And Anime.

Surprise, surprise!

As well as showing you some priceless outtakes which have never been shown on

British TV ever before.

So sit back and enjoy the definitive story of Only Fools and Horses, the show

which has given us some of the most memorable moments in British comedy.

Of course, that's just comedy. I mean, it doesn't really happen in real life.

It's not supposed to happen in real life.

Grandad?

He hasn't got it right.

The Trotters had lots of friends and one or two enemies.

But first up on the show is someone who could be said to have had a foot in both

camps. A man has stepped forward, a tall elderly man wearing a black coat and a

black hat.

He wishes to speak to someone called Aubrey.

No, no, Aubrey.

Aubrey?

I am here.

Herman Terence's Aubrey boy is one of Dale's oldest friends from school.

Conspicuously ostentatious and as hooky as they come.

Boise was this second -hand car salesman, and he was quite successful.

Bring the family down. I'll take you next to it.

But he was never quite straight.

Well, that Cortina was a death trap. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

You sold it to us.

Did I?

He loves to lord it over all the chaps he was at school with. I saw a place

rather like this on a television programme recently.

Dallas? No, it was a charity appeal.

Boise is a slightly dodgy character.

Boise did a little bit of a stretch when he was younger, you know.

Yeah, we're full.

Embezzlement.

Conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Fraudulent conversion of travellers' cheques and attempting to bribe the

of Lambeth.

But endearing in his way.

Morning, gentlemen.

John Chalice is indeed here, but only because his appearance in John

first TV hit, Citizen Smith, struck a chord with the writer.

There's this policeman. I thought, what can I do? It's a bit different. And I

just remember this character in a pub where I used to live. And he had this

curious way of talking. The bar was sparsely crowded, one or two early

diners, a few regulars, and a bunch of down and outs.

John Sullivan came up and said, I really like that, Sid, I'm going to try and

use it again.

Oh, yes, this came in with a Chesterfield and a gross of electric

as a part shot on a Ben and Kloss. Still cleaning it up a bit, a couple of new

tyres. Yeah, yeah, new engine, new body, and you've got a nice little motor. He

had the cars, he had the property, and he just had this slightly superior

attitude. You've never been to the Seychelles, have you?

Let's say he was a successful businessman, for want of a better word,

Dell was in the council flat.

So there was this rivalry that Boise always thought he was superior.

It did manifest itself in A Losing Streak, the second episode I ever did,

was a poker game.

It's going to cost you a thousand notes to see my cards, though.

I'm scared of Boise.

Well, you shouldn't play big boys games then, should you? Boise had the money,

had the success, and always tried to keep Del down.

Poor!

I didn't know you were good at math, Del.

And Del Boy's only got two pair.

Pair of aces.

Yeah. And I got another pair of aces.

Del had the banter.

And we'd always win. And we'd always have the last joke on Boise.

I knew you was cheating, Boise. Oh, yeah? How?

Because that wasn't the end that I'd dealt you.

And so there is this wonderful rivalry, but on the surface, they were sort of

still old mates.

He was just pompous.

Boise was a pompous man.

And again, John Sullivan developed the perfect foil in Marlene.

It was not pompous at all.

Marlene!

Before Marlene married Boise, she had a lot of boyfriends.

You remember Marlene, don't you, Del? Oh, yes, yes. All the lads remember

Marlene. Yeah.

Del included.

They did go out together for a month, and I think were engaged.

But I think Boise's bank balance rather swung it.

The times I said to him, yes, he's ugly, but he's successful.

Certainly, he and Del had a very, um, close relationship.

That upsets Boise.

And because it upsets Boise, Del Boy does it all the more.

Yeah, just saying hello to Marlene.

Yeah, I noticed you were approaching my wife and shaking her warmly by the

arrows.

Marlene wasn't supposed to be seen, ever.

But John Sullivan got the idea that he wanted Del and Rodney to look after a

dog. Rodney, take your leg out of that dog's mouth!

Where's this dog going to come from?

I suppose a boy could give Marlene a dog.

So I was only there, really, for the dog.

On Sue's first day, production was already behind schedule, and BBC's

director Ray Butt had to throw her straight in at the deep end.

I was met by Ray Butt, who was sweet, and he said, we're a bit behind, we've

to go straight into shooting, I want you to go in the house, and when I say

action, run over, you'll run over the Del Boy, he'll give you a bit of a hug,

maybe a snog, and we'll have a little pause there for Boyce's reaction.

Hello, Marley, my love. Hello.

We go straight into big, sexy, snogging scene with David Jason. And my total

communication with David at that point was that I'd managed to squeak, hello.

So you actors have to get to know each other very quickly.

Did you have a nice Christmas?

Oh, terrific, yeah.

I had a dog.

Yeah? We had the turkey same as every other year.

As soon as we started, the rapport I had, it was sort of immediate.

And indeed I had quite a good rapport with the dog.

Come on, kiss him goodbye.

Yeah, bye, Del, see you soon.

For God's sake, the dog's Marlene!

Boise had the cash to give Marlene anything she wanted, but there was one

his money couldn't buy.

It's a deep, deep unhappiness for her that she can't have a child.

So when Del suddenly says that he's going to provide a baby, it's just the

wonderful thing for Marlene.

Say that again, Del boy.

I said I could help you have a baby.

What do you mean?

You're willing to be one of them suffragette fathers?

No, no, no, no. What I mean is I know where there's a baby going.

What? Knocked off?

And then when the truth is revealed and the baby is not the boy that Del Boy has

promised.

It's amazing, isn't it?

Everything you buy off him's got something missing.

And not only is it a girl, but it's a brown girl.

We've got to play it as a throwback!

For God's sake, Marlene!

I might be able to con people into buying my cars, I might be able to

them that you conceived and gave birth in seven days flat, but how the hell am

going to persuade them my grandad was Louis Armstrong?

The voice he steams out.

And then you have to admire David Jason's skill, because he just brings

the audience back.

I suppose he's right, eh, Till?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know it makes sense, eh?

Still, it was a nice little dream while it lasted, eh?

Yeah. And it's just the way he does it that the audience immediately feels her

pain. And by the time I went out, trying very hard not to cry, the audience was

crying for me.

Coming up, we reunite Boise and Marlene and discover what fame meant for actress

Sue Holderness.

I did more than once have my bottom pinched. And as a special treat, we

some outtakes which have never been seen before on British television.

Welcome back to the story of Only Fools and Horses, as we take a look at the

people who revolved around Planet Trotter.

My mum always said you had vampire eyes.

Yeah, well, she should know the old fact.

We've reunited actors John Chalice and Sue Holderness, who play the on -screen

husband and wife, to see how being Boethian Marlene has changed their

People do come up to me all the time and go, Hello, Marlene, and with an

terrible pretend laugh.

It's usually three heapish -looking blokes come towards me, and I can see

recognition in the eyes, but they wait till they're past, and then I hear... I

turn round and they go... And off they go down the road. I remember where the

laugh, Boise laugh, came from. It was from a woman.

I remember it came from a woman. It was in a pub like this, and she was sitting

in the corner. She'd sit there talking to herself, and occasionally she'd

cackle.

Like this, and I always remembered it, and that's how I...

That's how I did the laugh.

I did more than once have my bottom pinched whilst in the supermarket.

What? Various times a day. Because Dale used to pinch my bottom all the time and

I looked as though I enjoyed it, various members of the public thought that it

would be a good idea to do it too. And I only ever once was cross. I'd usually

say, smile sweetly, but once I said, that is not appropriate.

They got me early in the morning. But that doesn't happen any more.

Why are these two people together? They're so rude to each other, but they

of need each other.

So it's a sort of love.

But when we moved on and we got to the green, green grass, I think it was quite

important to John Sullivan that, in fact, the relationship that Boise and

Marlene had was one of deep, profound affection, really. They did care deeply

for each other.

Boise and Marlene's spin -off ran for 32 episodes and was inspired after John

Sullivan went to John Chalice's 60th birthday party at his home in the

He said how much he'd loved seeing John rather grandly, welcoming all these

people to his fine home. He said, what would it be like if Boise and Marlene

that, took over a country manor?

Look around you, Marlene.

Hills, fields.

Woodlands, streams, and God's good sunshine.

Yeah, ain't natural, is it?

John Sullivan was so inspired by John Chalice's new home that it was actually

used in the show.

We were elated, really, that he thought the characters were strong enough to

have their own theories.

Come along.

But on the other hand, of course, you think, how the hell do you follow a

like Only Fools and Horses? And I'm not just a successful farmer.

Successful... Farmer, you've got one gay bull and 300 miserable cows.

301.

The problem John Sullivan was struggling with was why would a couple born and

bred in Peckham suddenly up sticks and move to the middle of Shropshire?

And then he had the brainwave when he watched an episode of Mr Driscoll

in it that Boise had grasped up the Driscolls and had to escape.

John always had to have a logical reason for things to happen. That's where you

start believing in these stories. It's because it could happen, it could easily

happen.

Growing up in Balham in South London in the 50s and 60s, the inspiration for the

Driscolls was based upon a notorious criminal family called the Richardsons,

ran the manor through fear and respect.

South London was the manor of some very horrible people.

In Fools and Horses, of course, we have the Driscoll brothers, and everybody was

terrified of them.

Boise, how nice.

John utilised that idea into a form of comedy.

Hello, Danny.

Your brother not with you?

Yeah.

The height difference is a very clever device.

These two tough guys were brought down to size, if you like, by the fact that

they didn't look.

They couldn't look that tough.

Is that right, Marley? He's up to spell?

Yeah.

Dear, dear, dear.

Will you let us know the moment you find out who done it, and we'll sort him

out. One very tall, one very short.

But you're too frightened to say anything because they're the Driscoll

I mean, remember Dole Boy gets beaten up to protect his little brother?

I mean, that was part of South London life, you know.

Dale?

Thanks.

It's all right, Rob.

It was a pleasure.

Yeah, well, it's family, isn't it?

It's what you do.

Del Boy was always getting himself in and out of scrapes with punters and

villains. My colleague here is a second Dan in karate.

And I'm a black belt in origami.

But his biggest enemy of all was someone supposedly on the right side of the

law.

Buenos dias.

Bloody hell.

Surprise, surprise!

Later, later.

In all me glory.

I told you you'd be surprised, didn't I? He was an old friend, as they all were.

They were all close friends at school.

Whereas everybody else would look after each other.

You couldn't trust him.

A real nasty piece of work.

Here, I saw your mum down the next head last night, Slater. Yeah?

She asked after me.

No. He was always this figure of authority that the others would take the

out of.

And it obviously burned him up.

Do you remember when we was kids?

Used to go over the ponds to play at pirates.

You were Dan Tempest.

Trigger was Long John Silver.

What character did I play, Del?

You played the bloke what walked the plank.

Oh, yeah.

You see, there's sort of the old -fashioned expression, there's honour

thieves.

There was no honour with Slater.

He nicked his own father.

I had no choice.

If there'd been a way of avoiding it, I would have.

But his real life was defective.

I mean, what else could I do?

True.

He'd only borrowed the bike to go down to the fish shop.

Del Boy gets nicked by Slater and he wants to turn Del Boy into a grass. He

wants him in his pocket.

And he spends the whole episode trying to get Del Boy to tell him where he got

these stolen goods from.

If I give you the name of the bloke that stole that oven, you let Rodney and

Grandad go.

No charges.

Yeah, all right. I'll let them go.

And you also drop all charges against me.

Oh, come on, Del. I'm looking forward to that.

He gets all these official documents and say, look, no one can touch her. You

know, no one can do anything to you. Now, give me your name.

Right. For the third and last time of asking, who nicked the microwave off the

back of the lorry?

I did.

And that's the end of the episode. And it's beautiful.

That's just sort of, if I could give someone an example of what a perfect

episode should be, that is it.

Slater was only in three of the 64 episodes, yet his influence went far

these occasional appearances in the Trotters' family life.

How clever, again, to link into something where there's been a bit of a

and a...

and bring him back in as the ex -husband of this new character that's, you know,

the love interest of Del.

Go on, just naff off out of it, Slater, go on. Oh, don't you worry, Del, I

wouldn't take it back now, not in that condition.

Come on, calm down, it's all right, Del, now stop it.

Sorry, Slater, you're getting her excited.

Yeah, and I always could, couldn't I, Del? Right, that's it, Del!

That was lovely to do because there was all that history and he is a delight to

work with and it was great to be playing his ex -wife because Jim is a very

talented actor.

We started his career.

Where he's gone from there is so incredible.

And now everyone goes, oh, my God, Jim Broadbent. But then he was, you know,

he's Slater.

Coming up, the first on British TV as we show you some never seen before

outtakes. I'll start that all over again.

As well as hearing about some explosive scenes that may be more familiar. I have

never seen a bang like it.

Welcome

back,

as we look at the friends and enemies of the Trotter family.

Your boy, Albert.

One of Del's mates who had been in the series from the very first episode is

Colin Ball, a man more widely known by his nickname.

Why'd they call him Trigger? Does he carry a gun?

No, it's because he looks like a horse.

He wasn't quite there.

Very nearly, but not quite.

All right, this is my punishment, isn't it?

To spend the rest of my life in this wheelchair.

Still, could have been worse, Del.

Al!

My gran had one with a squeaky wheel.

I think he probably is, for me, the greatest supporting sitcom actor of all

time. You ever been wrongly accused of something?

Yeah, once.

Yeah? How'd you get out of it?

Well, I didn't. I was guilty.

Trigger's so stupid that the others think he's stupid, you know.

So you get the rare sight of Del actually being more intelligent than

Where was she dead?

He died a couple of years before I was born.

We were so fortunate to have such talented actors like Roger Lloyd -Pack.

The brilliance of Trigger was that he made Trigger look as though

he as an actor was like that. In other words...

Dim -witted.

Yeah. He has this brilliant thing of when he's being Trigger, you look at his

face, and his face does these little simple... Yeah. ..little simple things,

these eyebrows and things.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, look, that kind of look. Yeah, but that's all part of, you know,

playing with a full deck, as we would say.

That's Derek Trotter in there, not bloody Einstein!

Del knows what he's talking about.

And I don't see what a Beatles manager's got to do with it anyway.

And just that running joke of never being able to get through his head,

real name.

All right, Dave?

John was going to drop it after a couple of episodes. He went, it's not working,

it's not working.

You know my brother, don't you, eh? Yeah, of course I do. How are you going,

Dave?

Sorry I'm late, little boy. I had to pop round my sister to arrange an alibi for

next Thursday.

I went, well...

Maybe just stick with it for a while because it makes me laugh and Roger did

so well.

All right, Dave.

All right, Dale.

Dave.

Cassandra and Rodney.

Cassandra and Rodney. Dave.

Rodney picked him up on it in one episode.

Trig, why do you call me Dave?

My name's not Dave.

My name's Rodney.

I thought it was Dave.

You sure?

You know, my name's Rodney. It's always been Rodney, you know.

And Trigger says, why does everyone call you Dave?

So what's Dave? Nickname, right?

Roger Lloyd Pack's Trigger was so far removed from Roger himself. Roger was a

very intellectual, well -read, classical actor.

But when he was playing Trigger, he was somewhere else.

When he went into character...

Nothing came out here at all.

Every other actor I've worked with, you can just see a little modicum of, I'm

really David Jason or I'm really Nick Lendhurst.

Roger, nothing.

And they love to talk about money. It's their favourite subject.

I mean, you chat about money and you can't fail to impress them.

Yeah? Yeah, God's honest.

I stole one of them old five -pound notes the other day.

I think the funniest moment for me...

is the broom joke.

This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles this time.

LAUGHTER That line, it's just, I mean, it's just brilliant. It's just so simple

and so... And I don't know, where does that come from? How the hell can it be

the same bloody broom?

Well, here's a picture of it. What more proof do you need?

Every single line, Roger had a trigger.

was dynamite you need a brain bypass to have one of those things how much you're

selling them for dill john would write scenes that were often the gag

didn't come for two or three pages you know people become famous for a little

while then they disappear like renny and renata simon d or

gandhi he'd just come out with one line audience 17 minutes later we'd get back

on with the the pot

And we loved him for it.

Yeah.

I mean, he made one great film and then he never saw it again.

Born and raised in Peckham, most of Del's friends and enemies were old

schoolmates from the Martin Luther King comp.

Among the road sweepers...

Ben Coppers, a second -hand car salesman, was a Scouse truck driver who

moved to South London for the lad and had been in Del Boy's pocket ever since.

Hey, Denzel!

Del Boy!

Rodney!

Denzel was such a nice, warm -hearted character, so much so that I think that

Del used to use that.

quality in him to further his own career.

No!

So what?

No, I don't want to buy anything. No, I don't want to sell anything. And no, I

don't want you to make me a millionaire.

A black character as one of Del's mates, and particularly towards the mid -80s

and later on, it wasn't about his race.

It was just mates being funny.

Forever the victim, Denzel was either being used and abused by Del or copying

flack from his wife Corinne for being used and abused by Del.

Denzel!

What the hell is he doing in my home?

We heard a lot about Denzel's wife and her influence on him, and I think we

ever saw her once.

Denzel, how can you trust this man?

Every time you meet him, you end up drunk or out of pocket.

Yeah, I know, but he's a mate.

John Sullivan had plans to make Denzel's wife a recurring character, but Eva

Motley, who played Corinne, sadly passed away after only one appearance.

The wonderful thing that John did was, instead of recasting that character, he

continued to write about her, but didn't actually have another actress player on

screen. Corinne and I have just got back together again, and I've had to promise

her that I'd stop seeing you, stop getting drunk, stop gambling and get a

job. My fault you married a wrong 'un?

Everybody in Peckham knows Bill Boy. He has friends all over the manor, in every

market, pub and greasy spoon.

Give us a decaffeinated cappuccino and a jammed donut, will you? Rodney, on the

other hand, had Mickey Pierce.

Rodney's friendship pool was limited, shall we say.

But, yeah, Patrick was great to work with. When Patrick Murray joined the

of Fools and Horses, he had already starred alongside Ray Winston in the

film Scum, but producer Ray Buck didn't cast him on the strength of his

burgeoning film career.

Ray Buck saw me...

in a TV commercial for Pizza Hut.

There's only a one in 12 ,285 chance of two people actually ordering the same

pizza. And that's exactly what we've done.

Fortunately for me, Ray Buck saw the advert and he went, that's Mickey

Hello, Rodney.

Good night, Emma.

Love you.

Rodney's superior to him.

He made Rodney look good, which I think Rodney needed sometimes.

Do you want to dance?

No. Right.

She's definitely a lesbian.

I think we all have friends like that. Our mums and dads say, keep away from

him, he's going to get you into trouble one day, and they're always right,

because they always do that, you know.

Danny Driscoll said this was a friendly warning.

I'm sorry, Dale, we had to tell him you'd taken the funds.

Let me tell you this.

If I end up supporting a flyover on the M26, I guarantee that you two are going

to be in the next junction.

Do you remember these?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, this brings back memories.

Well, every time you press a button, it turned the telly over, didn't it? Yeah.

What about this?

Now, this is not the original, but it's close enough to. Bit dusty.

Yeah, I remember them.

How about that?

And whenever I was in here, I was always ready.

Get out before Del Boy gets here and wrings my bleeding neck, you know what I

mean? Do come in, McKee.

I've put a few friends with me. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

They were very, very good days.

Doing it in front of a live audience was a special buzz. You know, we did those

scenes in the Nags Head. We did a few scenes and all that.

That's a special buzz. But Margate on location, that was like a completely

different ballgame. Oh, it was wonderful.

Do you remember on the coach, like...

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

And Rodney kicking the ball onto the policeman's head.

Rude gullet.

Nowhere.

Excuse me, sir.

Denzel had the lurgy, and the radio was on fire.

Full ahead, Bo. We're off to Margate.

John saw a bowls club near where he lived.

And there was just this sign saying, this year's Jolly Boys outing. It was

to Margate. So John took that, nicked it, and created this wonderful show.

Everybody's talking at me I don't hear a word they're saying

The reason it was one of our favourites is because it's one of the only times

that almost four cast have been together on location, because it was usually

just David and I.

The whole lot were there. It caused all sorts of problems on the basis that they

never shut up between deaths.

It went on and on. Everybody was just having a ball.

We did actually have a real Jolly Boys outing.

We all went fishing.

And I seem to remember we all caught something.

Nick, me, and the only person that day who didn't get anything was David.

Yeah, David got very cross with me because he couldn't catch anything, and

caught two.

To the point where he said, I'm coming over your side of the boat. I went,

David's not going to make any difference.

The boat's only this wide.

He got me up.

We all came back with these fish.

David had got his worm. Bring your worm in, Dave.

It was very funny.

Oi! Ben,

we've got to do something about this.

Someone get some water. Good idea. Water, we need loads of water. And his

pitted with a fire distinguisher.

I was round at John's, having a few glasses of wine, as you do, discussing

script, and he said, look, I've got this idea that they actually set fire to the

coach.

And he said, do you think we can do that?

And I thought about it. I said, well, I'm sure we can do it. I'm sure we can

it. And by the end of the night, I said to him, John, let's blow the f***er up.

And the next morning, while I was recovering from my hangover, John had

to the office to say, Tony says we can blow the coach up.

And the production manager said, he said what?

The thing went off. I have never seen a bang like it.

And then all I could hear was... I said, anybody tell the

fire brigade anything about this explosion?

And they said, yeah, we told the Margate people.

But the bang was so loud, it got round to Clacton or God knows where else.

And we had all these people turn up thinking it was a fire and an explosion.

It was extremely funny.

Don't worry, Harry, I won't tell your governor about it.

You palompa!

After the break, we reunite Del and Raquel in the boudoir.

I was lifting the sheets up and going, but she didn't buy anything on under it.

Oh, no!

And we can reveal for the first time on television some lost moments from the

studio floor.

I'm so sorry about that, but I thought I'd drop there, you know, whilst it was

going very well.

Welcome back.

Every live recording of Only Fools and Horses would take place at the studios

BBC TV Centre in London.

Invariably recorded on a Sunday night, it was the hottest TV ticket in town.

The audience were one of the easiest audiences to warm up because they came

wanting to laugh.

Please welcome David Jason!

We were going into the studio pre -recording on a Saturday, if I remember

rightly, going in then, doing the live show on Sunday.

You would then have a day off and you'd come back for rehearsals on a Tuesday.

I would go off and start editing the show because it was going out the

Sunday.

It's a very, very odd mix when you have a camera and your whole training and

your whole instinct is to just work to a camera.

But you can't because you've got banks and banks of people watching. And

a living, breathing audience.

We saw it through to the death.

Please release me.

Congratulations.

The two people who I learnt everything from in terms of comedy on television is

David and Nick. And the queen, queen, guac of home.

And that was followed by a medley of rock and roll.

What made it a joy in the studio was relying on those two and knowing that

would get you through it, whatever.

That is not funny, Wodney!

Back in the same bed for the first time in more than 14 years, we reunited Sir

David and Tessa to talk about what it was like performing in front of a live

studio audience.

I remember when the music started and we were all in the wings in the studio

waiting. The nerves, almost like you're doing a show in the theatre, that we

would all be walking up and down, wouldn't we? Getting just that little

anticipation of not knowing how it was going to go.

Nick Lindhurst and I used to walk and we'd pass each other and we'd stop

occasionally and go, why are we doing this?

Why are we... Here we go. I don't know. Why are we... It was because, as you

were saying, that build -up and hearing the audience out there.

Why is it... You have to ask yourself, we're so experienced, we've been doing

for years, and still, every time, before you went on, that... And do you

think that's made more difficult when you know there's an audience and

You've got an audience behind the cameras that's guiding you to give

the reaction.

But I remember the story with the Wendy house.

What was that? Leonard's line was something like, what sort of house is

Rodney? A Wendy house.

And this, we went rehearsals. Yes.

Get a little sneaker, wouldn't it? And on the night, the whole audience

We're going into the self -catering holiday trade.

Oh, what, on 200 Nicker?

Yeah, but we're starting in a small way.

Well, you got a Wendy house?

LAUGHTER

And Nick,

Linda and I both looked at each other and went... Because you weren't

it? No, it was just... It was just a line that was a nice line.

But for some reason, the audience thought it was the funniest thing. And

after that, whenever we got a line in the show that was going to be,

we thought, a big laugh during rehearsals, Nick Linton and I would say,

it's a Wendy.

And that's what that meant!

Yeah, it's a Wendy.

I remember hearing you say Wendy and I never knew what it meant.

And that was it?

That was it.

As any actor would tell you, performing in front of a live studio audience means

you have to keep the punters entertained even when the cameras weren't supposed

to be rolling.

We were lying in bed.

And there was a problem, right? And so because we had a live audience, we had

do something. So I was lifting the sheets up and going, she hasn't got

on under it. Oh, no. I remember that. Do you? Yeah.

But you had, unfortunately. Yes, I certainly had.

I thought you were a method actress.

Didn't go that far, though, the method. No.

Such a disappointment.

After trawling the archives, we have uncovered footage of when things didn't

exactly to plan and asked the cast and crew to look back on their more

moments which had never been seen before on British television.

150 Latvian radio alarm clocks.

Hi there.

But you think we just shot one perfectly every week? Uh -uh.

I spent all my money on Raquel's new dress.

Anyway, don't worry.

You know, we'll be all right tonight. Put all this on the old... We might as

well start again, cos I've gone now.

The Nags Head, I remember being a little bit dodgy, and you sensed at any point

any of the actors might just suddenly find something a little bit funny, and

then once one went, the whole lot went.

I won't be in tomorrow, mate.

Eh? Why? Why was that? Well, tomorrow night, me and Cassie. Me and Cassie. Me

and Cassie. Me and Cassie.

Mike,

the landlord of the Nags Head, was played by the much -loved actor, Ken

McDonald. who had his own inimitable way of warming up the audience.

Who does this remind you of? Eh? Eh? Who threw that?

Ken MacDonald.

God rest his soul.

It was always before we started recording, just about to turn over, and

the audience were watching all the monitors, and he'd pop up there and

threw that?

And I still laughed.

He's got it. He's got it on the end of it. Yeah.

He was through that.

He was through that.

He used to do that every week just to make the audience laugh. And at one

we were all doing it. We'd do it in the city with him. It was great.

Lovely. I really miss him.

You've got nothing to worry about, love. We'll all lend a hand.

You do the meat.

Sometimes, I remember if we got an audience, it was a little bit sticky

started. You and Nick were very clever at, I'll tell you what, I'll just

I make a mistake here.

And everybody goes, oh, look, he's made a mistake!

I mean, one look at Molly when she gets out of bed is enough to make anyone run

a mile.

LAUGHTER That woman can put the frightens up edible legs. I'll tell you

I'll stop that now.

LAUGHTER I'm so sorry about that, but I thought I'd stop there, you know, whilst

it was going very well.

LAUGHTER

By being able to pretend to make a mistake and then go, oh, it wasn't my

it was the director, I mean, he's terrible.

Me and the audience were all one against you guys up in the box. Yeah, we're the

enemy. Return tickets to Miami, 250 smack -a -roonies.

You know, ask the monkey before you go to bed for the night.

Huh?

I think the only person I don't remember ever, ever seeing laugh was Roger Lloyd

Pack.

Problems, Dave?

Doesn't seem to make any sense of anything, these. Don't think I'll start

all over again.

I don't know.

Everybody's free in America.

Keep us fatigued in America.

Mistake. I said you would!

Yes, as I said, you won't till tonight. No.

Notice there were none of me on there. I obviously made no mistake.

Word perfect, madam.

And goodnight.

Potpourri, potpourri!

People are still watching it and still enjoying it and new generations are

getting pleasure out of it. Bill!

It's gone!

I don't think any of us ever realised that we were going to become quite the

national institution that we became.

I wish that we were still doing it, because

it was such fun, brought me such pleasure, and it also brought me

tonight, brought other people pleasure.

Lovely job.

No income tax, no VAT, no money back, no guarantee.

Black or white, rich or broke, we'll cut prices at a stroke.

God bless Hookie Street.

Viva Hookie Street.

Long live Hookie Street.

Same 90 feet.