Monday 11 September 2017
- The Story of Only Fools And Horses feat. bloopers, Tuesday 12 September, on Gold
- The Story of Only Fools And Horses feat. Licensed to Drill, Tuesday 3 October, on Gold
A treasure trove of rare and unseen Only Fools and Horses footage is being shown for the very first time in The Story of Only Fools And Horses - an exclusive six-part series to celebrate the nation's favourite comedy channel, Gold's 25th Anniversary, on Tuesdays at 8pm until 3 October.
Gold's retrospective series features interviews with the cast, rare and un-aired scenes, bloopers and behind-the-scenes footage. This week, the show includes parts of a special one-off, dubbed 'the missing episode' - Only Fools And Horses: Licensed to Drill will be shown on television for the very first time.
Filmed in 1984 and discovered on a 'dusty shelf,' Licensed to Drill is an educational special produced exclusively for British schools. Made to be screened during science lessons, the film aims to teach students about crude oil and things that can be mass-produced from it. This exclusive footage is featured in The Story Of Only Fools and Horses: Family Matters airs on Tuesday 3rd October at 8pm.
Set in the iconic Trotter living room in Mandela House, Del Boy, Rodney and Grandad are at the top of their game. As usual, Del Boy thinks he's on to a winner as he reveals his new get-rich-quick scheme - he's bought an oil rig for the bargain price of £400, now all they need to do is extract "our own black gold."
Del grins: "We just lay low in our boat for a while and we wait for one of the big oil companies to move off the oil field and then we whip in a bit lively and use their hole."
Unfortunately for Del Boy, Rodney - ever the voice of reason, explains that off-shore means hundreds of miles off the coast, the upshot being "there's not much in the way of oil in Peckham." Del soon realises that yet again, he's been conned.
Produced by the Maureen Oilfield Consortium, Licensed to Drill is especially noteworthy as the final TV appearance of Lennard Pearce as Grandad.
The Story Of Only Fools And Horses also features some of the very best Only Fools and Horses outtakes.
Acknowledging it wasn't all plain sailing during filming, Nicholas Lyndhurst aka Rodney said: "So you think we shot one perfectly every week? Uh uh."
In one blooper, Del Boy is chatting to Rodney in their kitchen. Putting all his efforts into making lunch Sir David Jason realises he's messed up his lines and exclaims: "We might as well start again because I've gone now," as the audience and Lyndhurst laugh.
And in another, Nicholas Lyndhurst mispronounces his onscreen wife's name as "Ker-sai" rather than Cassie, leading him and Sir David Jason to embark on a conversation of gibberish, further entertaining the enthusiastic live audience.
On watching the outtakes during the making of The Story Of Only Fools And Horses, actress Gwyneth Strong who played Cassandra 'Cassie' Trotter for 14 years said:
The outtakes brought back loads of memories for us, memories that you don't even realise are there until you start seeing that material. I kept saying 'Who knew!' all the way through watching it.
Steve North, General Manager for Gold said:
I am so excited to be working with the Sullivan family to help celebrate Gold's 25th birthday this year, and really delve into the archives one of the most loved shows on the channel. Gold viewers will get a real treat.
John Quinn, Executive Producer, North One said:
Thanks to the late John Sullivan's family, we have access to some exclusive behind-the-scenes material. Driven by first-hand insights and anecdotes by many of those who were there.
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Denize Belingy, Publicist, UKTV
Notes to editors
About Gold
Sky 110, Virgin 126, BT and TalkTalk 408 On demand on Sky, Virgin and Now TV
Dedicated to celebrating the best of British comedy, Gold is the nation's favourite comedy channel.
Much-loved comedy series such as Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley and Outnumbered sit alongside successful commissions including Comic Strip Presents...Red Top and Marley's Ghosts, starring Sarah Alexander and John Hannah, and the live broadcast of the final ever performance of the Monty Python Live (mostly): One Down Five to Go stage show which became the highest rating programme in Gold's history in 2014.
The perfect tonic to make you laugh whatever the time of day, Gold shows universally funny content that everyone can enjoy. Gold.uktv.co.uk / @goldtvchannel
About UKTV
UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching over 40m viewers every month.
The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market. The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories. Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.