I’m a child of the late 60s, so like a lot of people my age, I grew up on a fairly heavy diet of 70s and 80s sitcom telly. Blackadder, The Young Ones, Yes Minister, Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses... the sort of programmes you didn’t just watch once, you absorbed them.
Most of them have episodes I can still watch over and over again, even when I know every joke, every pause, and every look to camera before it arrives. But with Only Fools and Horses, there’s one episode that I could probably watch on repeat all day, every day, and still not get bored of it.
The Jolly Boys’ Outing.
It’s just so watchable. Partly because John Sullivan knew exactly how to tell a story, partly because the plot gives everyone something to do, and partly because the acting is so good that even the smallest lines land perfectly.
The set-up is simple enough. The regulars from The Nag’s Head go on their annual coach trip to Margate, only for the whole thing to go spectacularly wrong when Del’s dodgy Albanian car radios explode and blow up the bus. The boys end up stranded overnight, Del runs into Raquel again, and the whole thing becomes less of a sitcom episode and more like a little comedy film.
Prior to the coach exploding, Mike and Trigger are helping Harry (driver) up the steps, he's a little worse for wear" after their stop off, at the halfway house.
Trigger turns to Mike and asks "What d’you think’s wrong with him?", Mike in his usual dry wit replies "What do I think? Well, snow -blindness would be my bet, Trig.", Trigger immediately responds with "Yeah? I thought he was pissed."
Trigger turns to Mike and asks "What d’you think’s wrong with him?", Mike in his usual dry wit replies "What do I think? Well, snow -blindness would be my bet, Trig.", Trigger immediately responds with "Yeah? I thought he was pissed."
Then later, after their coach has exploded, all the Jolly Boys are outside Margate Railways Station that is closed because of a train strike and they have realised that they have missed the last bus home
and everyone is shouting and blaming each other, Uncle Albert tries to
calm things down in the only way Uncle Albert knows how:
The timing, the irritation, the way Del knows exactly where Albert is going before Albert has even got there.
Then there’s Mrs Cresswell, the stern landlady running the guest house where the lads end up staying. She lays down the law with an 11:00 pm curfew and makes it very clear that there’ll be no ungodly behaviour under her roof.
Earlier when Del, Rodney and Albert enter the Villa Bella guest house, Del mentions how cold it is, Mrs Creswell responds "That’s the weather.", "Oh is it?" Dels responds, "I don’t know, I’m a stranger round here."
Anyway, the boys end up at the Mardi Gras Nightclub, in the background the club singer is doing her turn, Boycie, Mike and Trigger arrive at the club, when Dels says "It’s good here, innit eh?", "Stunning." replies Boycie,, Del quickly responds with "Yeah, they got a magician, a singer and a comedian. The singer’ll be on in a minute!", I mean the line is funny as it stands, but the singer misses a beat as she glares at Del for insult. Absolute class.
Later when Del and Rodney arrive home from the nightclub at 2am in the morning, Del is about to ring the front doorbell when Rodney, in full panic mode, stops him:“You can’t ring the bell! You’ll get Mrs Cresswell out of her coffin!”
It’s such a perfect Rodney line. Scared, sarcastic, and completely believable.
Written down, it barely looks like a joke. On screen, it’s perfect. It’s a tiny line, but it’s beautifully delivered.
This is probably why the episode works so well. It isn’t just one famous scene or one big set piece. It’s packed with little moments, little looks, throwaway lines, and characters bouncing off each other in a way that feels completely natural.
Some comedy dates badly, and some comedy only survives because people remember watching it when they were young. But The Jolly Boys’ Outing still works because it’s properly well made. The story moves, the jokes land, the characters feel real, and it has that strange comfort-watch quality where you know exactly what’s coming and still enjoy every second of it.
For me, it might just be the perfect Only Fools and Horses episode.
Writing this I started to remember the bits that shows that my wife and myself say t each other on probably a daily basis, so as I remember them I'll add them to my "The Lines That Stuck" page.
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