Almost eaten in Miami by an alligator, while me and that dipstick Rodders were shouting at a Bee Gee?

september 24  2017

Only on Fools And Horses! DAVID JASON on his pride at the comedy's family appeal

The Christmas special is a simple way to measure the growing success of Only Fools And Horses: in 1982, during the second series, we were obliged to pretend that the Dorset coast was Malaga in order to save money. In 1991, by contrast, we were off to Miami to film in and around the Everglades.

I can safely say without fear of contradiction that this was the first time I had ever acted alongside an alligator. They say you should never work with children or animals, and they may be right. But you should certainly never work with animals that have sharp teeth and snapping jaws.

The creature chosen for the part went by the unimaginative stage name of Al the Gator. Al was roughly the length of Ipswich and — in common with many of his kind — had a demeanour that said: ‘Don’t mess with me.’

His ROLE was to take a run at Nicholas Lyndhurst, as Rodney, and me, perched on a log, ready to sprint off in terror. No tricks, mirrors, screens or smoke were used: when you see Nick and me on our log, with Al just behind us, looking mean, moody and unmessable with, that’s how it was.

What you don’t see is the ranger with a loaded rifle standing by — a sight which was faintly reassuring, although you had to hope, in the absence of any concrete proof, that he was a good shot. You also don’t see the bucket of alligator-friendly titbits intended to get Al moving in the right direction.

hink we’ll all remember for ever the startling take in which Al set off at high speed as planned, but not in the direction of the food. Instead, he ran at the camera crew who, naturally, scattered to all corners of Florida.

Sue Holderness, who plays Boycie’s wife, Marlene, and happened to be videoing the action at this point, might have had some award-winning footage had she not panicked and ended up making a short movie of her feet running across the grass. No future for Sue alongside David Attenborough in the BBC’s Natural History department, one sensed.

 

Considerably less risky was the scene with Bee Gee Barry Gibb, who lived near where we were filming. I have no idea who set the wheels in motion to make his guest appearance happen. I only know John Sullivan was beside himself with excitement about having a multi-million-selling singing legend on the show.

 

 

It was a complex shoot. Barry was in his garden, which backs on to Miami Bay, and Nick and I were on a tourist boat from which we had to spot him, and from which I had to unleash the very Del line: ‘Oi, Bazza!’ The whole thing was co-ordinated by walkie talkies.

BBC budgetary concerns were, as ever, much in evidence. The tourist boat Nick and I were on wasn’t chartered by the production, which would have cost a lot of money, but was an actual Miami tourist boat, doing its routine rounds of the bay.

Had we messed up, we would have had to wait until the next tour before we could try again.

Barry, meanwhile, would have had to hang on in his garden, and maybe his patience would have run out because how long, ultimately, can you keep a Bee Gee waiting for someone to shout ‘Oi, Bazza!’ at him?

 

'Instead, he ran at the camera crew who, naturally, scattered to all corners of Florida. Sue Holderness, who plays Boycie’s wife, Marlene, ended up making a short movie of her feet running across the grass'

Thankfully, we nailed it first time, so I never found out. When the filming was done, Barry had me and Nick round for tea and biscuits. He was a lovely chap, and a massive fan of Only Fools who, in the days before the internet, had tapes of the latest episodes sent to him in the States.
 

I have a picture that I cherish, taken that afternoon, of me, Nick and Bazza Gibb standing at the end of Bazza’s jetty, Bazza in a police patrol T-shirt and shredded jeans and me in a flowery shirt and a Dolphins baseball cap.
 

Tremendous fun — and in the Florida sunshine, too. It’s staggering to reflect that we called this ‘work’. Isn’t that what only fools and horses do?

 

 http://beegeesfanfever.blogspot.nl/