The Oscar winning actor who was first pick for Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses
Things could have worked out very, very different
Only Fools and Horses is seen by many as the perfect sitcom as there is almost nothing about it that you would want to change.
There is no character you could say shouldn’t be in it and no episode you would cut from a series because it didn’t fit in.
Writer John Sullivan was a master of his craft and knew how to get the writing, acting and story line spot on.
Perhaps the most enduring part of Only Fools and Horses are the characters such as Del Boy, Rodney, Uncle Albert and Trigger.
The BBC episodes could be set in Timbuktu but if you still had David Jason playing Del Boy and Nicholas Lyndurst playing Rodney it would somehow still work.
But what if things had not quite turned out the way they did? What if someone else had actually ended up playing lovable Del Boy?
Well the truth is that they almost did.
Jim Broadbent, who in 2001 won a best supporting actor Oscar for Iris, became a regular character on Only Fools and Horses as bent copper Roy Slater.
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However he was originally meant to play the part of Del Boy but did not feel like he was quite right for the part.
Earlier this year he told the Sunday Post : “I didn’t feel that It was quite right for me. I was probably too tall for a start and the Jack the Lad character was not quite my style.
“As it turned out David Jason was perfect and he played Del Boy far better than I could have done.
“I was happy as Roy Slater. I didn’t really expect to appear more than once, so I was delighted to get the chance to be the villainous copper a number of times.”
Jim Broadbent’s character Roy Slater became a much loved character himself and despite only appearing in three episodes he always felt part of the family.
He said: ““Only Fools And Horses was a great series and I was thrilled to be a part of it. Nobody expected that it would take off in the way that it did and in the very early days it did not look as if it would last very long. Once the viewers got interested though, it just went from strength to strength.
“For me it was an honour to have been part of one of the most successful comedy shows in television history and it was a sheer delight to work alongside David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, a fantastic experience and a lot of fun.”
As well as winning an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the film Iris, Jim Broadbent also won awards for playing Lord Longford in the television film Longford and won a BAFTA his performance in Moulin Rouge!
