Only Fools and Horses: The Musical review
A fan-pleasing nostalgia fest that plays like a greatest hits compilation, says our reviewer.
Image credit: Johan Persson
A fan-pleasing nostalgia fest that plays like a greatest hits compilation, says our reviewer.
Spanning seven series across ten years, plus a clutch of Christmas specials, Only Fools and Horses frequently tops list of Britain's most beloved sitcoms.
Touring the UK after a West End run, the musical version is unlikely to rank high amongst critics' picks of the best-ever stage shows. But it's a fan-pleasing nostalgia fest that plays like a greatest hits compilation of the TV show's funniest and most memorable moments.
It begins with the theme tune transformed into a market-set number that places the show firmly in the Peckham of the past, as trader Del Boy Trotter tells his younger brother Rodney "This time next year we'll be millionaires" in the first of many box-ticking moments.
The plot, such as it is, then follows the build-up to Rodney's wedding to local lass Cassandra as Del meets and falls for actress and part-time stripper Raquel.
Throw in the thuggish Driscoll brothers threatening to do Del over if he doesn't pay his debts, plus fan favourites like Trigger, Boycie and, of course, Grandad and Uncle Albert and you've got what amounts to a nifty condensing of 64 episodes worth of material into a two-hour show.
Writers Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan (the son of the TV show's genius creator John Sullivan) clearly love Only Fools and Horses as much as the audience.
The musical riffs fondly on its inspiration and - aside from one clever number in which Trigger predicts what Peckham will be like in the 2020s - is an affectionate tribute rather than a departure from or an expansion of the original.
That's cushty, as Del would say, but the music mostly isn't. With the help of Chas Hodges of Chas & Dave fame, Whitehouse and Sullivan have come up with songs that are occasionally fun (like Del's mangling of the French language in a mickey take of Fosse) but mostly forgettable. And the inclusion of the Bill Withers classic Lovely Day and Simply Red's Holding Back the Years is jarring, although the latter provides a surprisingly poignant moment amidst all the comedy.
Whitehouse is on double duty as Granddad and Uncle Albert and he nails both characters, as do Sam Lupton as the wheeling-dealing Del we all know and love and Tom Major as a suitably gauche Rodney. Their banter is spot-on, and the nods and winks to the TV show come at such a fast clip that you wish that, as with the stage version of Fawlty Towers, it was a play, not a musical.
As the latter, Only Fools and Horses is far from a classic. But as a celebration of a much-loved sitcom, it's lovely jubbly.
Only Fools and Horses: The Musical is touring the UK in 2025
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