To Hull and Back

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Only Fools and Horses episode
"To Hull and Back"
Series	Christmas Special
Writer	John Sullivan
Director	Ray Butt
Producer	Ray Butt
Duration	90 minutes
Airdate	25 December 1985
Audience	16.9 million

To Hull and Back is an episode of the BBC sit-com, Only Fools and Horses, first screened on 25 December 1985. It was the first feature-length addition of the show, and the fourth Christmas special.

1 Synopsis
2 Quote
3 Trivia
4 Errors
5 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Trotters are enjoying another night at the Nag's Head, Rodney tells Del all about his latest girlfriend of the week, and Albert talks to a woman his age named Ruby. Then, Boycie and his business partner Abdul call Del in for a secret meeting, which involves Del visiting The Netherlands to smuggle diamonds for them, for which they are being paid £15,000. Del agrees to do the mission.

Ruby tells Albert that her son used to be best friends with Del in school, as well as mention that her son is local policeman DCI Roy Slater, who even arrested his own father Harry.

The next morning, as they arrive at the market, Rodney disagrees with the diamond smuggling trip, but Del assures him that everything will be OK. Just then, Denzil shows up in his lorry, and asks Del to leave him alone since Denzil and his wife Corrine just got back together, and he promised her that he'd stop getting drunk, stop gambling, stop seeing Del, and get a steady job. With all that said, Denzil drives off, while Rodney reminds Del about what he did to earn Denzil's anger.

The Trotter brothers quickly run off from the police after trying to flog watches that play 38 different national anthems, but they run into Slater and his right-hand man Terry Hoskins. Slater tells Del and Rodney that he's already investigating the case, and already knows that Boycie and Abdul are involved, only he doesn't know who the courier is.

Slater, Hoskins, Del, and Rodney head off to Sid's cafe, where Slater mentions that he'll be retiring after this case. As Slater and Hoskins leave, Del phones Boycie and tells him that Slater's onto them. Boycie suggests that they and Abdul meet tonight, but they can't meet up at any of their places nor the Nag's Head. Del has an idea...

As Boycie and Abdul wait in the trailer of an unsuspecting Denzil's lorry in a cap park, Del and Rodney arrive in their Reliant Regal van. Del tells Rodney to stand watch and give a signal if somebody's coming. Rodney asks what the signal, and Del suggests trying to hoot like an owl.

Del enters the trailer and gets the money from Boycie and Abdul to take with him to Amsterdam. As Boycie and Abdul leave, Slater shows up, and Del quickly hides under a big cover, but unfortunately gets locked in the trailer.

The trip doesn't go as planned when Del is accidentally transported up to Hull by Denzil Whilst there, Del decides that, rather than go through the airports being watched by Slater, they should sail to Holland in a hired boat instead. "Experienced seaman" Uncle Albert arrives to captain the boat, although it later emerges that he spent most of his time with the Royal Navy in the boiler room and thus has no experience of navigation. Despite that (and after receiving directions from an oil rig) they make it to Amsterdam, where they meet a Dutch diamond dealer named Van Cleef and conclude the transaction without a hitch, despite the fact that Boycie's money is counterfeit. The Trotters are temporarily sidetracked when they find themselves chased by two Dutch police officers and a man in a trenchcoat. During the chase, Albert stops to catch his breath, and his two nephews decide that they should give up and go to jail since the police are closing in, but however, the two officers are actually chasing the man in the trenchcoat.

After getting lost in the North Sea again, the Trotters eventually find their way back to England by following the Norland ferry, which goes from Zeebrugge to Hull.

Upon returning home to Peckham and meeting with Boycie and Abdul at the Nag's Head, the group are apprehended by Slater who, it turns out, was in cahoots with the Dutch dealer from the start. Slater makes a proposal: either they all go to prison, or he leaves with the diamonds and the money and they walk away free; the Trotters and friends accept the second option. Del vows to get revenge, but Slater mentions that he's going far away from London when he retires. Boycie then asks Del where he's going. Del tells him that he's going one place where he should've stayed the whole time: home. With that said, Del, Rodney, and Albert head off home.

Meanwhile, Slater barks orders at Hoskins to drive him home, but Hoskins drives his boss straight into a police ambush. It then emerges that Slater's subordinates, even Hoskins, were in turn conspiring against him, and set him up to be caught in possession of the illegal diamonds.

Back at their flat, Del and Albert reveal that they had switched two of the diamonds for cats eyes and kept them, while Rodney reveals that it was he, and not Slater, who took the £15,000. Rodney believes that this is finally the Trotters' chance to be millionaires. Del, unaware that the money Boycie had intended to pay him with was actually real, promptly throws it out of the window, leaving Rodney and Albert open-mouthed, and Del to ask his relatives if they think he's some sort of wally.

[edit] Quote

Abdul: Van Cleef!, I knew we shouldn't have done business with him, Bloody Foreigner! (This said with Van Cleef at all times being in his native Netherlands whilst Abdul living in the UK is undoubatbly of foreign extraction).

[edit] Trivia

This episode was shot entirely on film and also had no laughter track.
Many of the outside scenes were shot in Amsterdam.
When Denzil drives away at the traffic lights, Del is upset and wonders why Denzil hasn't let him fill the lorry up. Rodney reminds Del of the awful things that he has done to Denzil in the past:

Ruined his wedding reception (Who's a Pretty Boy?).
Almost broken up his marriage to Corrine (she couldn't appear anymore because Eva Mottley, who played Corrine, died).
Flooded his kitchen (Who's a Pretty Boy? again).
Stole his £2,000 redundancy money (As One Door Closes).

[edit] Errors

When the Trotters were at the Nag's head, and Albert was talking to Slater's mother Ruby, she remarked about how her husband Harry never got over Slater joining the police force and "Bloody glad when they put him [Harry] away I [Ruby] was." Yet when Slater returned from his prison sentence in The Class of '62, he said his father died, and also explained why the prison governer wouldn't give him compassionate parole (the letter his mother wrote).
As the Trotters return to the flat after coming back from Holland, Rodney shows Del the £15,000 and says that he picked it up when they were running around the table from Slater, but when the Trotters were seen running around the table, Rodney quite clearly didn't pick the money up. Then, when the Trotters exit the room after Del tells Boycie that he's going home, Rodney does not pick up the money from the table, he just walks out of the room without going near it.
Before Del throws the £15,000 out of the balcony, Rodney tells him that they should invest it, but in Time On Our Hands, Rodney is completely against the idea of investing when Del suggests what to do with their new fortune.