It’s been 22 years since Sir David Jason performed his final Only Fools and Horses scene, marking the moment he’ll have been away from the show for exactly the same amount of time as he spent in it. However, his memories of it are still vivid, and the 85-year-old’s face lit up as he was invited to reminisce on it by GB News star Eamonn Holmes and his co-star Paul Coyte.
Talking on the new podcast Things We Like with Eamonn and Paul, which makes its debut this month, the pair asked David: “Did you like the theme music for Only Fools and Horses?” He chuckled: “I think what it did was to set up the character of the time which is, we’re all a little bit like that, no VAT!” before winking to punctuate his point. The show focused on the exploits of two dodgy black market traders with big dreams in London back in the 1980s, with the famous and instantly recognisable theme tune belting out the lyrics suggesting that the only people truly working honestly were “fools and horses”.
Joining in with the reminiscing, Eamonn uttered the catchphrase: “They don’t like it up ’em’”, which first originated on the wartime drama Dad’s Army to refer to the intimidating use of a bayonet on the end of a rifle in conflict.
Clive Dunn, who played Lance Corporal Jones in the show, had used a phrase that would later be synonymous with Only Fools star David.
Eamonn and Paul helped reveal the surprising link between the two shows during the upcoming podcast, when David let slip that he’d almost ended up in Jones’ role.
“You were gonna be in Dad’s Army, am I right? You were gonna be the original Corporal Jones,” Paul asked, as a surprised Eamonn retorted: “Get out of here! Seriously??”
He explained how he’d been called to the BBC to meet the producer and the director of the show and try out the character’s lines.
“They told me he was 50 or 60 years old, and I was about 30 or whatever it was, so I adopted this voice… ‘You don’t like it up ’em!'” he laughed nostalgically.
He continued that he’d been told on the spot he had the job before getting a call just a few hours later to say the exact opposite – and of course, as we now know, the iconic role eventually went to Clive Dunn instead.
“I said, ‘What?! I just went for an audition and he said I’d got the job.’ [My agent] said, ‘Yes, but the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing,'” he exclaimed, while Eamonn and Paul watched rapt.
Sir David Jason is the first guest on the duo’s new podcast, with the full debut episode airing on YouTube on May 14.