EXCLUSIVE: Solely Fools and Horses star Tessa Peake-Jones has lifted the lid on what it was actually wish to work on the beloved BBC sitcom.
Tessa Peake-Jones, who performed Raquel in Solely Fools, has lifted the lid on the long-lasting comedy. (Picture: BBC)
In 1981, the primary household of Peckham drove into our lives in a yellow three-wheeler van, with a dream that “this time subsequent yr we’ll be millionaires”. Solely Fools and Horses, the BBC sitcom that turned a nationwide establishment, remains to be entertaining generations greater than 45 years after Derek “Del Boy” Trotter (Sir David Jason), youthful brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Grandad (Lennard Pearce), welcomed us to Nelson Mandela Home.
However talking at the moment, Tessa Peake-Jones, who performed Del Boy’s associate Raquel Turner, reveals that the fact for the solid and crew getting ready for reside viewers studio scenes was no laughing matter. “It’s actually scary as a result of you’ve got a number of hundred folks watching you,” admits Tessa, 68, who has simply filmed Solely Fools and Horses: The Misplaced Archive for comedy channel U&GOLD to mark the present’s milestone forty fifth anniversary.
“It’s a really peculiar factor that I by no means fairly acquired used to. If folks had seen us backstage earlier than the present, they’d have seen folks pacing up and down the corridors with nerves, together with David [Jason] and Nick [Lyndhurst]. We cared a lot, and we needed to get it proper, however one slip-up of a phrase may break that snicker.”
With David Jason as Del Boy in Solely Fools episode The Likelihood of a Lunchtime (Picture: Getty)
Earlier than the Bafta-winning solid stepped into the studio, they spent numerous hours in rehearsals, usually leaving them struggling to see the humorous facet of issues. “Should you’re doing comedy, you discover you don’t need to snicker as a result of then you definately break the fact of it,” remembers the actress. “Normally, we’ve seen all of it in rehearsals so many occasions, it’s not that humorous anymore anyway.”
The 2-part particular, out later this yr, will characteristic interviews with solid and crew, and contains archive materials from greater than 10 basic episodes, together with Christmas specials The Jolly Boys’ Outing, from 1989 and 1992’s Mom Nature’s Son. Though the reunion is certain to be a success with viewers, filming was fairly uncomfortable for returning solid members Sir David, now 86; Tessa; Gwyneth Robust (Cassandra), 66; and Sue Holderness (Marlene), 76.
“You’re trying again at one thing 30 years in the past, and we’re all quite a bit older now, so that you simply look so completely different,” displays Tessa. “It was more durable for David as a result of a few of that stuff for him is trying again 40 years, which I do know he finds fairly odd. It was good spending the day with him as a result of we don’t get to fulfill up that always, however he stated, ‘Isn’t it odd to see your self trying a lot youthful?’”
She says the expertise was even “fairly miserable” and that she wouldn’t want to repeat it. “You assume, ‘Oh, we have been in our prime!’ which is sort of a bizarre factor to be witnessing many years later. It’s a really odd expertise. It was a bit like torture to be pressured to sit down on the couch and watch these items again from 30 years in the past, it actually was, however it’s a part of the job.”
Away from Solely Fools and Horses, Tessa is busy getting ready to tread the boards for the brand new stage comedy-drama Invisible Me at London’s Southwark Playhouse, written by Bren Gosling. She performs Lynn, a lodge cleaner and home abuse survivor who’s about to embrace romance in later life.
David Jason and Tessa Peake-Jones as Del Boy and long-suffering Raquel (Picture: Getty)
Nicholas Lyndhurst, Gwyneth Robust, Buster Merryfield, Tessa Peake-Jones and David Jason (Picture: Getty)
The topic of discovering love in your 60s resonated with Tessa. “Once you get to a sure age in your 50s and 60s, folks cease noticing you,” she says. “And that’s for women and men – you’re simply not seen as a lot. “So to have a look at that age group and say, ‘How about we try to get them again relationship’ is fascinating. How do you try this at 60 if you’re not superb on the web, and also you’re not nice on-line? What do folks do? All of that’s actually enjoyable.”
Tessa cut up from her ex-partner, actor Douglas Hodge, in 2013. The couple, who share two kids, had been collectively for 3 many years. Has her new function impressed her up to now once more?
“It hasn’t, however by no means say by no means,” she smiles. “Ben’s written all of it rather well. Every of us has acquired a barely completely different method of getting our confidence again sexually. He does it fairly slowly as a result of they’ve been on their very own for some time, and if you’re by yourself for some time, you overlook methods to flirt or methods to chat somebody up.
“It’s most likely simpler for youthful generations who’ve discovered about emails and all that stuff from very early on. I can’t use
something however my forefinger to sort something on my cellphone, and it takes eternally. So, it’s a coaching that we by no means had, so if you add that additional layer of methods to meet somebody, it makes issues even more durable.”
Tessa as she seems at the moment (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Talking of exhausting issues, this yr Tessa bids goodbye to a different enormous tv success: ITV interval drama Grantchester. She’s performed religious housekeeper Mrs Maguire for the final decade. “We completed filming in November,” she smiles. “We had no thought it could go on for 11 years, so we’ve been extremely fortunate.”
Her character has grown with the present, supporting every new arriving vicar from James Norton’s Rev Sidney Chambers to Tom Brittney’s Rev Will Davenport and, most just lately, Rishi Nair as Rev Alphy Kotteram.
Did she preserve something from Mrs Maguire’s wardrobe as a memento? “My girdles,” she chuckles. “They have been particularly made for me, and so they used to maintain me in as a result of I assumed she could be very upright and fairly held in as an individual, and this girdle did simply that. I’d put on them below my garments, and so they saved me fairly straight-backed. I assumed if I ever go to something posh sooner or later, they could are available helpful!”
But no mementoes have been available from the set of Solely Fools and Horses, as nobody actually believed that it could ever finish.
“Each time you completed, expensive outdated John Sullivan would say, ‘Nicely, that’s it now’,” explains Tessa. “Then three years later, he’d contact us once more and say, ‘I’ve written one other script’. After we lastly did the final one, all of us thought we’d come again subsequent yr. I saved a few of my scripts as a result of they’re fairly nostalgic. It’ll be one thing I’ll at all times have the ability to look again on and browse and remind myself about.”
She’s going to at all times have fond reminiscences of her time on the present. “Everybody was so pretty and welcoming after I joined,” she says. “We used to fulfill up at Christmas time for the TV particular. It was like a household assembly up and catching up about what we’ve completed in the course of the yr. I don’t assume any of us actually thought it was going to finish.”
Tessa enjoying Imelda Cousins in Holby Metropolis (Picture: BBC)
A staggering 24.5 million viewers tuned in to the ultimate Christmas particular, Sleepless in Peckham, in 2003. Comic Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan, son of Solely Fools and Horses’ legendary creator John Sullivan, created a West Finish musical in 2019 to fill the hole for bereft followers. A smash hit with audiences, it toured the UK in 2024-25.
Tessa hasn’t watched the stage present model however is stuffed with reward for the variation. Regardless of that, she hopes there gained’t be a
related reboot on tv.
“It’s finest left alone,” she says. “John Sullivan was the genius behind the present. I don’t assume you might ever repeat that and I hope they don’t. Some reboots, or after they’ve introduced everybody again for a prequel, simply haven’t labored.”
She says the present remains to be reaching new audiences because of its repeats on a number of tv networks. “We get letters from kids on a regular basis saying, ‘Oh, my granddad watched this present’, or ‘My mother and father watched this, and so they liked it’, so it passes down the generations,” she says. “So I feel go away it like that as a result of it’s a bit like a jewel – you don’t need to fiddle about with it.”
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Solely fools would disagree.
- Tessa Peake-Jones, James Holmes and Kevin N Golding star within the new comedy drama, Invisible Me, at Southwark Playhouse from April 8 – Might 2. Tickets are on sale now by way of their web site.
James Norton, Tessa and Al Weaver in Grantchester (Picture: Kudos)
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