Nicholas Lyndhurst doesn’t think ‘Only Fools and Horses’ would be made today.
The 57-year-old star – who played Rodney Trotter on the sitcom – thinks comedy has changed over the years and it is no longer acceptable to have "cruelty" or a "victim", and so the tension in the relationship between his alter ego and his on-screen brother Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter (Sir David Jason) would no longer be a source of gags.
Speaking on ‘BBC Breakfast’, he said: "Well, I think they’d probably look at the précis of [the show] and go, ‘Well, it’s two people just fighting each other all the time.’
"You have to have cruelty in comedy – if you take the victim out of comedy, or out of a joke, there is no joke.
"It’s quite PC, rightly or wrongly. Comedy is about, ‘I’m glad that didn’t happen to me’, ‘Look at him, he fell down that hole’.
"Chaplin knew all about it and we laughed at Chaplin because it wasn’t us falling down the hole."
Nicholas previously admitted he can’t bear to watch the show any more because so many of the cast, including Roger Lloyd-Pack (Trigger), Ken MacDonald (Mike) and Buster Merryfield (Uncle Albert), have passed away.
He said: "I can’t watch it now. I don’t want to see friends who are no longer with us on screen.
"We used to go and surprise them on their birthdays. We used to wind them up. We used to tease each other. It was a family. So yeah, it’s sad.
"I remember Lennard Pearce, who played Grandad – bless his heart – saying to me, ‘Have you heard about these new VHS video recorder machines? That means we’ll now live forever. Did you ever think of that?’ I said, ‘Christ no, I hadn’t.’ "
And Nicholas admits it would be "impossible" to make another episode of the classic sitcom because the show’s creator and writer John Sullivan, who penned every episode, has also passed away.
He said: "We can’t do it. It’s impossible without John. And not just that: we’ve lost Roger, Ken, Buster, Lennard, and Roy [Heather, cafe owner Sid].
"That’s a big chunk of the cast, sadly, not with us anymore. Of course, we can’t do it without them. Wouldn’t dream of it."
Nicholas Lyndhurst doubts Only Fools and Horses would be made now
