Nicholas Lyndhurst has tried to write a sitcom which could match ‘Only Fools and Horses’ but he wasn’t able to come up with the witty one-liners.
The 57-year-old actor is most famous for playing Rodney Trotter opposite Sir David Jason as Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in the beloved BBC comedy and has had roles in several other successful sitcoms such as ‘The Two of Us’, ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ and ‘Porridge’ spin-off ‘Going Straight’.
As a veteran of the genre, Lyndhurst has attempted to turn his hand to writing his own comedy series but he just didn’t have the imagination to come up with enough memorable gags.
Speaking to the Daily Express newspaper, he spilled: "I have tried writing, but it was the hardest thing I have ever tried to do. It was just me and a friend throwing some ideas around but it did not work."
After trying to pen his own scripts, Lyndhurst has even more respect for ‘Only Fools and Horses’ creator John Sullivan for creating so many unforgettable lines and hilarious moments for the small screen.
Lyndhurst believes that the late Sullivan was able to come up with so many brilliant storylines because of his life experience growing up in South London and working for 15 years in a variety of jobs before getting his television break by writing 1970s sitcom ‘Citizen Smith’.
He added: "Those one-liners from ‘Fools and Horses’ are hard to come up with … the chandelier thing was a true story."
Lyndhurst is referencing the 1982 episode ‘A Touch of Glass’ which saw Del Boy, Rodney and Granddad (Lennard Pearce) attempt to clean two priceless Louis XIV chandeliers for a Lord and Lady in Yeovil with disastrous consequences.
Since Sullivan’s death in 2011 at the age of 64 there have been no new full episodes of ‘Only Fools and Horses’.
The last time Del Boy and Rodney were seen in something fresh on screen was in a short sketch for ‘Sport Relief’ that aired in March 2014 which was written by John’s sons Jim Sullivan and Dan Sullivan and included previously unused material penned by their father.
David Beckham was part of the special and at the end of the sketch he recreated the famous scene where Del Boy falls though the bar in 1989 episode ‘Yuppy Love’.
Nicholas Lyndhurst struggled to write own sitcom
