Only Fools and Horses legend Sir David Jason has admitted he almost quit the show after a joke received an overwhelming response from the audience.
The beloved sitcom, which depicted the life of a working-class family in Peckham trying to strike it rich, won over British viewers.
In his memoir, My Life, Sir David recounts how the audience’s reaction to a line in the show almost led him to hang up his flat cap for good. He wrote: “There’s a moment in series three of Only Fools and Horses where Del and Rodney are squabbling about the viability of Rodney’s plans to go it alone in business and invest his £200 of start-up capital in the self-catering holiday trade.
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“Lennard [Pearce] as Grandad, has had almost no lines in this scene – he’s just been a silent presence in his armchair in the sitting room. But now, at the mention of Rodney’s proposed £200 holiday property investment, he suddenly pipes up and says, ‘What you got, Rodney – a Wendy house?’
(Image: BBC)
“It’s hard, even now, to summon words that adequately account for the volume of the laughter this line got from the studio audience. The laugh went on so long, it threatened to run into the next episode – and all Nick and I could do was stand there and ride it, while trying not to join in.”
He went on: “When we had completed the filming, I stepped forward to say a few words of thanks to the audience, which I always liked to do. This time, just to tease Lennard, I said, ‘That’s it. I’m resigning. Nick Lyndhurst and myself have worked our socks off all evening for this show. Lennard Pearce hasn’t said a bloody word – and then he just says ‘Wendy house’ and he gets the biggest laugh I’ve ever heard in my entire life’.”
(Image: UKTV/BBC/PA Wire)
Sir David lifted the curtain on how this bit of banter led to an epic “laughter ratings system” among the cast and crew of the show. A line would get rated for its hilarity as mini-Wendy, sub-Wendy, or even the coveted all-out Wendy – that ones the giggle gold standard, reports the Mirror.
He confessed: “Laughs would be ranked according to their perceived Wendy-ness. A decent line might be scored as a ‘mini-Wendy’. A good line would get a ‘sub-Wendy’. What you were hoping for, of course, was an ‘all-out Wendy’ or a ‘full-blown Wendy’. The ‘full-blown Wendy’ was the holy grail.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
