Why Nicholas Lyndhurst is missing from the Only Fools reunion

Sir David Jason loves to tell the anecdote of when he and Nicholas Lyndhurst faked an argument on the set of Only Fools and Horses. In 1991, at the height of the show’s popularity, a bored Del Boy and Rodney decided it was time to shake things up.

“Nick and I were in a caravan,” Jason, 85, has said. “We were twiddling our thumbs and I went, ‘I know – why don’t we pretend to have a row? You can storm out and say you’re leaving and I can shout at you saying, ‘Don’t you ever come back again. I never want to work with you’.

“So the door sprang open and Nick stormed off and I threw something after him. But then we thought maybe we’ve gone too far, so we said to everyone ‘It was just a joke’.”

Rumours of a strained or even a problematic relationship between the show’s two biggest stars persist to this day – despite all evidence to the contrary – and it’s likely the “prank row” anecdote is a way of addressing this mischief-making. What is true is that Jason and Lyndhurst were very different actors from different generations with different attitudes to fame. The dynamic of their on-screen partnership depended on these differences as much as their similarly brilliant acting abilities that made them, in many ways, TV’s most beloved odd couple.

The news that there is to be a new Only Fools and Horses documentary in 2026 without the 64-year-old Lyndhurst’s involvement raised fresh questions about his relationship to the show’s legacy. But those doubts make more sense in the context of his lifelong aversion to publicity, let alone the personal tragedy that led him to protect his privacy even more fiercely. In 2020, his only son, Archie, an actor, died from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia at the age of 19.

“Lyndhurst’s absence from the new documentary isn’t anything personal or unpleasant in terms of the rest of the cast,” says Graham McCann, author of Only Fools and Horses: The Story of Britain’s Favourite Comedy. “Privately, I think he’s on good terms with them. He’s someone who sees a clear gap between himself and the characters he plays and he wants to concentrate on the here and now. When he finishes [a job] he finishes.

“He really finds it uncomfortable being wheeled out to celebrate a character he’s played in the past. He prefers to stay private. I’m not aware of any actor who’s as extreme as he is in that regard. That’s how he feels he needs to be to work as an actor.”

Only Fools and Horses ran for seven series with 19 specials from 1981 to 2003. Marking the sitcom’s 45th anniversary, U&Gold’s Only Fools And Horses: The Lost Archive will feature archive footage of the Trotter family never broadcast before and was greeted with delight by fans of a show regularly voted Britain’s favourite sitcom (the “Time On Our Hands” episode in 1996 had more than 24 million viewers).

Jason and Lyndhurst came to the show from very contrasting paths. “Jason was more old school in that he’d had to do anything and everything to go through rep theatre, which required adaptability and doing things you didn’t want to do,” says McCann. “It looked at times like he was never going to be a star and he really had to graft and be patient. Whereas, Lyndhurst made a kind of logical progression towards a big role at a younger age.”

Jason had become a well-known TV actor before 1981, but wasn’t a household name. He was most associated with Ronnie Barker, appearing in three episodes of Porridge and as Barker’s assistant Granville in the sitcom Open All Hours. Lyndhurst attended Corona Theatre School in west London and appeared in a variety of TV dramas and children’s shows. He became best known as one of Wendy Craig’s sons in the sitcom Butterflies, which began in 1978 when he was 17.

“When David and Nicholas arrived for the first time, they were great actors but they were picking up a brilliant script that was written for them,” says Tony Dow, director of Only Fools And Horses between 1988 and 2003, including several Christmas specials. Dow was a close friend of the show’s creator John Sullivan, who died in 2011. “It didn’t take long for the two of them to recognise each other’s talent and rely on each other.”

“The relationship with David was totally instantaneous,” said Lyndhurst. “When David and I and Lennard Pearce [Granddad] read for the first time this chemistry happened.

“David and I got a reputation for being gigglers [on set]. There is a love at the heart of their relationship that we always thought was the most important thing to portray. It wasn’t hard to act ‘affection’ because we all felt it for each other anyway.”

Speculation that the two lead actors did not always get along stems from the natural fascination of fans with a relationship on-screen that becomes so familiar and loved that it’s inevitable people start to wonder what that relationship is like off-screen.

“A lot of people imagine there is real tension, such as that between Rodney Bewes and James Bolam in The Likely Lads or among some of the cast of Dad’s Army. People feel they know these characters and get curious if they hear they aren’t socialising with each other all the time,” says McCann. “For the hardcore fans, it’s like seeing your parents not getting on.”

“I can categorically tell you there was never a row of any form between the two of them,” says Dow. “There was no conflict because we all knew we were blessed to be in this fantastic show, even though Nick found his high profile pretty frightening at the time. He would walk around with a big hat over his head and an overcoat because he couldn’t handle the reaction of people on the street.”

“Lyndhurst was less suited to public life and it irked him much more and he found that more of a struggle,” says McCann.

The reach of the show became so overwhelming that even Jason, who has been much more involved than Lyndhurst in the Only Fools and Horsesuniverse since filming ended in 2003, has expressed his disappointment that his other work (Porterhouse Blue, A Touch of Frost, The Darling Buds of May) has often been lost amid the public’s obsession with Del Boy.

Lyndhurst had success with theatre roles and other sitcoms such as Goodnight Sweetheart and The Two of Us, as well as winning critical acclaim playing an English professor in the Frasier revival in 2023. But if he wasn’t cautious enough already about appearing in public outside his acting, the tragic death of his son may well have convinced him to back away from prying eyes with even more determination after 2020.

“I have been there for him and his wife but they sort of said… that they’re going through this really, really tough time and a lot of people are wanting interviews and press,” admitted Jason in 2022. “He said ‘Don’t worry if we don’t get in contact with you. We just want to get on with life and grieve quietly on our own’.

“He’s much more, how can I say, self-contained, than he used to be. So, unfortunately, we don’t see each other as much as I’d like to. But that’s how things work out sometimes.”

So the two-part Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive will feature new interviews with surviving cast and crew, with archival material from classic episodes. They will all pay tribute to Sullivan, who died in 2011 and was a man both Jason and Lyndhurst referred to as a “genius”. But Lyndhurst, who lives with his wife in West Wittering, near Chichester, West Sussex, will not be there with them.

“When David and I do conventions, we say ‘Nick is around and he’s OK, but this is a part of his life he’s moved on from’,” explains Dow. “Even if he hadn’t experienced personal tragedy he would have hated all that anyway.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]