Only Fools and Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst once recalled the time when he was nearly “fired” from the BBC sitcom.
The show, which aired on the BBC during the 1980s, full of cheeky innuendo and over-the-top stunts that left viewers howling with laughter. Decades on from their show’s heyday, the cast looked back at some of their memorable moments from the programme.
Looking back on the show, the BBC commissioned a special documentary back in 2021 titled The Story of Only Fools and Horses. The retrospective featured interviews with the cast of the show, as well as those who had written the scenes that would go on to be comedy gold.
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Amongst those who had a look back at the show was Nicholas Lyndhurst, who played Rodney Trotter in the smash hit. However, for one of his biggest moments, he opted for a scene that nearly left him without a job.
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
The final episode of the show’s second season was entitled A Touch of Glass. Being a season finale, tension in the show was building to a crescendo and saw Rodney and Del Boy, played by Sir David Jason, get into a spot of difficulty whilst they try to clean a chandelier.
Viewers were left in fits of laughter as the comic sketch goes – as they would expect – horribly wrong, with the chandelier falling and smashing into the ground. This happens when the pair make a foolish mistake and not taking care of the light fixture before it fell.
(Image: BBC)
Reflecting on the scene, Nicholas admitted that before the cameras started rolling, bosses had given them clear and strict instructions so that the show went off without a hitch. He explained that the warnings had come from a showrunner called Ray, who explained the gravity of the situation.
“Ray, he was only a little guy but fierce with it, came up to me and said this to me,” he recalled. “‘This chandelier that we are about to drop costs £6,000 and if you laugh when it’s dropped we’ve lost the end scene.
“‘If we’ve lost the end scene, we’ve lost the episode. If we’ve lost the episode, we’ve lost the series because the BBC will only transmit six – so if you laugh when that drops I will fire you,'” he added.
(Image: BBC)
Having been given the lowdown on how serious both he and his co-star had to be, Nicholas and David set themselves up for the scene to start. However, he said that Ray was standing right in front of him and was apparently “looking daggers” at him, making sure he knew what he needed to do.
But in a shocking turn of events, the actor admitted that it was in fact Ray himself who burst into laughter when the light fixture fell. “About 10 seconds went past and I could see his shoulders going,” Nicholas quipped.
Having seen Ray get the giggles after the shoot, Lyndhurst turned to co-star David, thinking of what Ray had told him. But Nicholas did give Ray credit, saying that he had been watching try to hold back the laughter.
“I see him out of the corner of my eye, reach into his parker and pull out a handkerchief,” the actor revealed. “He just stuffed the whole thing into his mouth.”
Once the camera had stopped rolling, the stars of the show were able to breathe a sigh of relief and then laugh about the mess they had just made. He explained: “I came down that ladder and the air went blue.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
