{"id":532348,"date":"2026-04-15T14:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532348\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T14:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:45:11","slug":"only-fools-and-horses-episode-banned-for-20-years-for-being-too-cruel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532348\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Fools and Horses episode \u2018banned\u2019 for 20 years for being too \u2018cruel\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Only Fools and Horses <\/a>star Tessa Peake-Jones has said modern sitcoms should be as heartwarming as the BBC sitcom \u2013 but the series almost tarnished its own loving reputation back when it first aired.<\/p>\n

In a new interview, the actor, who played Del Boy\u2019s wife Racquel, said Only Fools\u2019s enduring appeal is down to the writing having \u201cso much heart\u201d.<\/p>\n

She told The i Paper. \u201cSome of the comedy today seems to be having a go at other people \u2013 it can be quite cruel in a way that I don\u2019t find funny personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Only Fools and Horses featured jokes made by entrepreneurial market trader Del Boy (Sir David Jason<\/a>) at the expense of his hapless brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), one controversial episode was \u201cbanned\u201d for featuring a scene too \u201ccruel\u201d to air.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Only\u2018Only Fools and Horses\u2019 episode Royal Flush was blocked from broadcast (BBC)<\/p>\n

Creator John Sullivan disliked \u201cA Royal Flush\u201d <\/a>so much that he allegedly stopped it from being broadcast for almost 20 years.<\/p>\n

In the 1985 Christmas special, Del Boy (Sir David Jason<\/a>) gatecrashes a party held by the new love interest of his brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) \u2013 a rich daughter of a duke \u2013 and ruins their burgeoning romance during a climactic dinner scene.<\/p>\n

According to the documentary Secrets & Scandals of Only Fools and Horses, Sullivan felt this episode was not in keeping with Del Boy\u2019s typically lovable personality and asked to change it two decades later.<\/p>\n

Editor Chris Wadsworth said that it was \u201cquite a cruel, dark episode\u201d, adding that Sullivan branded it \u201cnot a good\u201d one.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome 20 years later, he said, \u2018Can we do anything to take out Del being nasty?\u2019\u201d Wadsworth revealed.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the original version of the episode, TV producer Richard Latto added: \u201cThe original where Del Boy is being quite cruel to Rodney is a hard watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, episode director Ray Butt, who died in 2013, said he thought Del Boy \u201cwent a bit over the top\u201d and \u201cturned too nasty and lost his warmth\u201d during the dinner scene.<\/p>\n

\"DelDel Boy (David Jason) and Raquel (Tessa Peake-Jones) in \u2018Only Fools and Horses\u2019 (BBC)<\/p>\n

Jason, 86, agreed, stating: \u201cPerhaps that scene wasn\u2019t as good as it could have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

The episode would have certainly sat badly with fans of the sitcom, which followed the escapades of the Trotter family, who still send Peake-Jones and her surviving cast members letters.<\/p>\n

Peake-Jones said: \u201cWe still all get letters from teenagers just discovering it. It\u2019s amazing that people are still watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actor, who stars in the new Southwark Playhouse production Invisible Me, recently revealed<\/a> that the cast members used to be overcome with pressure before shooting scenes in front of a live audience.<\/p>\n

\"TessaTessa Peake-Jones: \u2018We still get letters from teenagers just discovering Only Fools and Horses\u2019 (BBC)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people had seen us backstage before the show, they\u2019d have seen people pacing up and down the corridors with nerves, including David and Nick,\u201d she told The Express.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cared so much, and we wanted to get it right, but one slip-up of a word could ruin that laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-532348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}