Nicholas Lyndhurst: Why I can’t bear to watch Only Fools And Horses now
AS BRITAIN’S best-loved sitcom, Only Fools And Horses provoked gales of laughter. But for Nicholas Lyndhurst, the show is too painful to watch.
The star, who played Rodney Trotter, can’t bring himself to view any repeats because so many friends among the cast and crew are now dead.
In an interview for today’s Event magazine, the 57-year-old actor says: ‘I can’t watch it now. I don’t want to see friends who are no longer with us on screen.’
John Sullivan, the show’s writer and creator, died in 2011 but some of its most popular stars died while the series, which drew audiences of 20 million and more, was still on air.
Lennard Pearce, 69, who played Grandad; Harry ‘Buster’ Merryfield, 78, who played Uncle Albert; and Kenneth MacDonald, 50, who played publican Mike Fisher, all died during the show’s run between 1981 and 2003. Roy Heather, 79, who played cafe owner Sid, and Roger Lloyd-Pack, 69, who was Trigger, both died in 2014.
Lyndhurst is still good friends with Del Boy co-star Sir David Jason, but says they tend to see each other, and the remaining cast, only at funerals. ‘That’s how it’s been. It’s horrible,’ he says.