John Sullivan (I)

Del Boy and Rodney to turn Grass

Del Boy, Rodney and Trigger could make a comeback in BBC1's Only Fools and Horses spin-off The Green Green Grass.

From Peckham to paradise

Will an Only Fools and Horses spin-off tickle our funny bones? The Independent talks to its creator, John Sullivan, and the cast.

I would like to thank Only Fools and Horses (BBC1, Christmas Day) warmly for all they have done, and urge them to stop doing it now. Rodney's hair is getting paler and Del's is getting blacker. You do feel that smuggling illegal immigrants, however inadvertently, is a younger man's game. In this Christmas special the Trotters are poor again because, as John Sullivan, the writer, said: "Rich isn't funny." Even so, there seemed to be a lot of level ground between the laughs.

OK, so we're nit-picking here, but it's hard to help yourself when you're watching such a limp version of a previously excellent series. Where Only Fools and Horses used to be fast, funny and confident, it's now a kind of embarrassing footnote that serves only to deflate the latter half of Christmas Day.

Of course, there are some Christmas specials that don't call themselves Christmas specials - the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special (BBC One, 9.40pm, Christmas Day) is called merely Only Fools and Horses, possibly in acknowledgement that, if it's as bad as last year's, it won't be special at all.

Off The Telly Review

It's been almost two decades since its debut, and there's the legacy of one too many re-runs on UK Gold, but still that very particular, potent appeal of Just Good Friends hasn't weathered or grown stale. Even Paul Nicholas' salty rendering of John Sullivan's self-penned title theme, garnished with textbook Ronnie Hazelhurst noodling, remains at the end of the day essentially harmless and even, well, likable. Watching the series again, and especially this famous final episode, is a thoroughly agreeable experience.

This series is a four-part prequel to David Copperfield. The first told how Micawber's misfortunes were engineered by a malevolent father-in-law though, frankly, Dickens's Micawber was more than capable of contriving his own misfortunes. Sullivan and Jason seem to be concentrating on the poignancy of poverty. And that's a different story.

In fact, it is difficult to think of a less appealing episode. Perhaps "If They Could See Us Now" will ultimately live longest in the memory as the least funny Only Fools and Horses of all time (although let's not forget that the series did go seriously off the boil before its triumphant finale of five years a go).

John Sullivan: The spirit of Christmas present

The pious folk of Dickensian England would be reassured to know that one man still looms large over the nation's Christmas, but mystified to find that his name is not Jesus, but Jason. On Christmas Day, the return of Only Fools and Horses, starring David Jason, is all but guaranteed to deliver BBC1 its highest viewing figures of the holiday period. On Boxing Day, Micawber, starring David Jason, should do the same for ITV.

Heartburn Hotel did not seem to endear itself to many as it did to me. The BBC's own continuity announcer still calls it Heartbreak Hotel. It is, however, co-written by John Sullivan, who also wrote Only Fools and Horses, so it is an egg worth incubating.