List of Only Fools and Horses characters

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This is a list of characters from the BBC situation comedy, Only Fools and Horses

Contents 1 The Trotter Family 1.1 Del Boy 1.2 Rodney 1.3 Grandad 1.4 Uncle Albert 2 Other regulars 2.1 Trigger 2.2 Boycie 2.3 Raquel 2.4 Cassandra 2.5 Marlene 2.6 Denzil 2.7 Mike 2.8 Mickey Pearce 2.9 Damien 2.10 Sid 2.11 Alan Parry 3 Guest characters 3.1 Reginald "Reg" Trotter 3.2 Roy Slater 3.3 Jumbo Mills 3.4 Renee Turpin 3.5 The Driscoll Brothers

[edit] The Trotter Family

[edit] Del Boy

(Played by David Jason)

Del Boy was born after the War and became his family's main moneymaker before he left school. His gift of the gab made him a natural salesman, no matter what the quality, safety, legality or suitability of the goods in his possession. Devoted to the memory of his mother and hateful of the way his father left after her death, Del puts family high on his agenda, refusing to put Rodney into care as a child and looking after Grandad in his frailty until his death. That said, Del was never afraid to stitch up Rodney to save his own skin or pride or for his own personal amusement or gain (he has had two free holidays from exploiting Rodney). Popular with the ladies, Del was engaged numerous times during the 1960s and 1970s but never got close to marriage, only finally settling down after re-meeting Raquel and having a son with her. Del misuses French phrases as part of his wish to appear cultured but is ultimately found wanting in aesthetic situations. Del's luck changed in 1996 when an antique watch hidden in his garage made him and his family overnight millionaires. He lived the high life for 5 years before losing it all in 2001 due to a stock market crash.

[edit] Rodney

(Played by Nicholas Lyndhurst)

Rodney Charlton Trotter was born in the early 1960s after being accidentally conceived and never got to know his parents. His mother died and his father absconded before he had barely started school, so he was brought up by his teenage brother Derek and his declining Grandad. Rodney was a bright but easily-influenced child, attaining GCE passes in mathematics and art before going to art college in Basingstoke, where he was thrown out after three weeks for smoking marijuana, which also earned him a criminal conviction, a fine and a suspended prison sentence. Rodney subsequently became Del's apprentice, suitcase-carrier and general whipping boy, and became the opposite to his brother cerebrally - blessed with knowledge but lacking entirely in street-wisdom or common sense, hence Del's frequent labelling of him as a "plonker". Rodney tried numerous times to take more control of the business, pursue new interests or go out on his own, but it was only after meeting Cassandra at his evening school that Del finally decided not to interfere. Rodney duly married Cassandra but continued to stay to an extent under Del's influence. In the final episode of the show, Sleepless in Peckham, it was finally revealed to Rodney that his biological father was in fact local gentleman crook "Freddie the Frog", and not Reg Trotter, following much speculation in preceding episodes. In the same episode he and Cassandra became the parents of a baby girl, named Joan after his mother.

[edit] Grandad

(Played by Lennard Pearce)

Born at the turn of the 20th century, Edward "Grandad" Trotter, grandfather on Del's father's side (Del and Rodney's absent father Reginald was his son) served in the Army during the Second World War and worked in a number of semi-skilled jobs. He was widowed early and spent much of his final years almost completely housebound, although Del made him responsible for the housekeeping and the cooking while he and Rodney went out to work. Grandad was never seen without his hat (even wearing it in bed), watched at least two television sets at once and rarely failed to burn the meals he prepared. He died sometime between late 1984 and early 1985 (just as filming for Series 4 was getting underway) and was buried in the episode "Strained Relations".

[edit] Uncle Albert

(Played by Buster Merryfield)

Born approximately in the early 1920s after his elder brother Edward, Albert Gladstone Trotter was a seaman as man and boy, initially in the Royal Navy, then the Merchant. He married Ada but the marriage didn't work out for reasons unknown, and Albert was a pensioner alone, moving to the homes of distant relation after distant relation, until attending Grandad's funeral and moving in with his great-nephews Del and Rodney afterwards in 1985. He took over the Grandad roles of housekeeping and cooking, doing a considerably better job of it, and was also in the Nag's Head with Del and Rodney frequency, drinking rum, playing the piano and singing (despite being banned by Mike). Albert never stopped talking about his war days to anyone in earshot, often issuing tedious anecdotes to which allowed Del, Rodney and other characters mocked him. Albert's death - 16 years after moving in with his great-nephews - was mourned on as grand a scale as Grandad's. This was written into the next episode made after the death of actor Buster Merryfield in 1999. In his will he left Del and Rodney £145,000 each, which got them out of debt with the Inland Revenue.

[edit] Other regulars

[edit] Trigger

(Played by Roger Lloyd Pack)

The chief supporting character throughout the show's run, Trigger was a local road sweeper and 'village idiot' who had no enemies and was highly valued by Del as a friend. Trigger - apparently so called because he looks like a horse - was the son of a local woman and an unknown military father, but had numerous extended family members. He went to school with Del and has always swept the roads of Peckham by day before propping up the Nag's Head bar at night. Early in the run we saw Trigger also as a mild crook and trader but eventually he stopped getting involved in buying and selling and just became a valued hanger-on. Despite being extremely dim, Trigger's generosity and good nature is respected by all in the area. He consistently called Rodney "Dave" under the genuine belief that that is his name, even though he hears everyone else using the correct name time and again. John Sullivan later revealed that Trigger's real name is Colin Ball.

[edit] Boycie

(Played by John Challis)

Boycie went to school with Del and Trigger and emerged as the most financially successful but least popular of the trio. A frightful snob with a machine gun laugh and membership of the local Masonic lodge, Boycie was a ruthless businessman - mainly in used cars and pirate movie retailing - who still socialised with his Peckham compatriots partially out of a sense of duty, although under it all he remains fond of Del and Trigger playing cards with them on numerous occasions. He married Marlene in the mid 1960s but it took more than 20 years for them to conceive a child after Boycie was discovered to have a low sperm count. Their son Tyler was subsequently born and recently the family moved to the countryside for spin-off sitcom "The Green Green Grass" to escape local gangsters, The Driscoll Brothers, whom Boycie had grassed up to the police. (In the episode 'Sickness and Wealth', Boycie admits that 'Aubrey' is given name.)

[edit] Raquel

(Played by Tessa Peake-Jones)

A trained actress and singer whose career never took off, Rachel "Raquel" Turner married and then separated from policeman Roy Slater before joining up with a dating agency, where she was introduced to Del. They hit it off but split after a row over Raquel's part-time job as a stripper. They re-met accidentally in Margate, where Del was stranded after missing his transport back from a day trip, and Raquel was working in a club as one half of a conjurer's act. This time they got back together and Raquel moved in, taking much of the housekeeping duty off Albert while also trying occasionally to relaunch her theatrical career. She and Del survived a crisis after Del found out the identity of her ex-husband - Slater was his old nemesis - and had an unplanned but very welcome son, Damien, although they never got round to marrying. Raquel was responsible for re-furnishing and re-decorating the flat to the extent that it looked like a family home for the first time.

[edit] Cassandra

(Played by Gwyneth Strong)

An intelligent, slightly spoilt daughter of a wealthy, self-made businessman, Cassandra was a bank worker who was taking evening classes when she met Rodney, with whom she started a relationship after they danced together at a nightclub. Their love blossomed to the extent that even Del approved, and the two soon married. Cassandra's ambitious nature and Rodney's own difficulty in untying the apron strings of his family meant the marriage initially struggled to work, with the two separating after a year, although ultimately they reconciled their differences and grew stronger, especially after Cassandra miscarried their first child. She later gave birth to Joan Trotter (whom Rodney named after his and Del's mother).

[edit] Marlene

(Played by Sue Holderness)

Mrs Boyce had a prior reputation as a well loved 'entertainer' of men, including Del and Trigger, before she married Boycie in the 1960s. However, there was a consistent undercurrent of an affair between Del and Marlene throughout the programme. It was revealed in the episode 'Fatal Extraction' that they had actually had a short romance in the 60's before she was with Boycie. Del met her when she was working as a cashier in a betting shop on Lewisham Grove. Marlene no longer works but instead keeps the Boyce home in Kings Avenue, for a long time having her beloved Great Dane, Duke, as her only company until a long fertilisation course produced son Tyler.

[edit] Denzil

(Played by Paul Barber)

An unemployed put-upon husband when first seen, Denzil was another schoolfriend of Del's although he arrived in the area from Liverpool well into his teens. A trusted and liked friend of all, Denzil was nevertheless regularly on the receiving end of Del's scams. He was married to Corinne (Eva Mottley) who was only sighted once before leaving him. He ultimately forged a reasonable living as a courier and long distance lorry driver.

[edit] Mike

(Played by Kenneth MacDonald)

The landlord of the Nag's Head (although not from the very beginning; his predecessor was never seen, with just a succession of barmaids providing service), Mike Fisher became a respected landlord and friend of the regulars, often targeted by Del as a potential customer for any dubious gear he was selling. Mike's private affairs rarely were discussed, although he was divorced before taking over the pub. The death of actor Kenneth MacDonald in 2001 prompted a plot line of Mike's imprisonment (Request by Kenneth before he died) for fraud in subsequent episodes, with the local cafe owner Sid taking over as licensee of the pub.

[edit] Mickey Pearce

(Played by Patrick Murray)

A young, confident but largely unimaginative spiv figure and friend of Rodney's, often on the receiving end of Del's jibes whenever he issues one of his regular boasts or exaggerations. In the early days he often targeted the same girls and high-reaching ambitions as Rodney, later just becoming a cash-in-hand delivery man for Boycie, amongst other things. One of the regular jokes about Mickey was that at the beginning of the series, he sported the pork-pie hat and suit of the Two-Tone/Ska scene (which was very popular at the time), but continued to wear these clothes for the rest of the series, well into the 2000's.

[edit] Damien

(Played by Grant Stevens (1991), Robert Liddement (1992), Jamie Smith (1993-96), Douglas Hodge (1996, as adult), Ben Smith (2001-03))

Damien Derek Trotter, Del and Raquel's son, grew up into a typically moody and brash teenager and was a constant threat to Rodney, who viewed him as a 'devil child', even suggesting the name of Damien as a joke over The Omen films, only for Del and Raquel to take his suggestion seriously. The Omen joke between Rodney and Damien - often featuring the music from that film - is continuous throughout the episodes following his birth. Damien also appeared as an adult in Rodney's futuristic dream in the episode "Heroes and Villains", portrayed as the war-mongering and all-powerful president of the now multinational Trotters Independent Traders.

[edit] Sid

(Played by Roy Heather)

Sid made sporadic appearances throughout the show's run, mainly as the proprietor of the run-down and unhygienic local cafe (which was shot in different locations, depending on the episode), for which he racked up a conviction for 'unintentional attempted poisoning' and subsequently three more for running an 'unhygienic eating house'. Sid was always seen with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and on one occasion Denzil found two hairs in his porridge. After Nag's Head landlord Mike was imprisoned for embezzlement in the episode "If They Could See Us Now", Sid took over and remained in that role for the remainder of the series.

[edit] Alan Parry

(Played by Denis Lill)

A regular cast member during series six and seven and once described by Del as a "little fella, one blue eye, one brown, talks with a squint, walks with a stutter", Alan Parry was Cassandra's father and subsequently, Rodney's father-in-law. He was the owner of a successful printing firm which employed Rodney for a time from 1989 to 1991, and later became a friend of Del, often ending up drunk or getting sick after eating too many jellied eels whilst under Del's influence, much to the chagrin of his wife, Pam.

[edit] Guest characters

[edit] Reginald "Reg" Trotter

(Played by Peter Woodthorpe)

Only appeared in one episode but mentioned in numerous others, Reg was the father of Del and (until the plot twist of "Sleepless in Peckham") Rodney. One year after the death of his wife Joan in 1964, he abandoned his sons and his father in 1965 on Del's 16th birthday but returned 18 years later in the 1983 Christmas special episode "Thicker than Water", in which Del's paternity was called into question. When it later emerged that he had edited Del's medical records to show a different blood group, he left again, never to return.

[edit] Roy Slater

(Played by Jim Broadbent)

Appeared in three episodes: "May The Force Be With You", "To Hull and Back", and "The Class of '62". A much-reviled ex-schoolmate and former best friend of Del's, Slater is a corrupt policeman and (as revealed in "The Class of '62") the ex-husband of Raquel. He was later to sent to prison for diamond smuggling.

[edit] Jumbo Mills

(Played by Nick Stringer)

Appears in the episode "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", but also mentioned in "The Jolly Boys' Outing" as Del's ex-business partner and old friend on a Jellied eels stall. Mills returns from Australia to persuade Del to move out there with him and become business partners again. Stringer also appeared in an earlier episode, "Go West Young Man", playing an Australian man who bought a dodgy car from Del Boy, which he later crashed into the back of Boycie's E-type Jaguar, which at the time was being driven by Del.

[edit] Renee Turpin

(Played by Joan Sims)

Only appeared in the episode, "The Frog's Legacy" but mentioned in "Chain Gang". She informs Del of the gold legacy that Freddie the Frog left to his mother. She also sparked a debate over who Rodney's real father was after stating that "Joanie was never 100% sure about him".

[edit] The Driscoll Brothers

(Played by Roy Marsden and Christopher Ryan)

Danny and Tony Driscoll, usually known as the Driscoll Brothers, they only appeared in one episode - "Little Problems" - but were mentioned in numerous others. The Driscoll brothers were the local gangsters with a fearsome reputation. They beat up Del Boy after he failed to repay money owed to them, and in the same episode left Mickey Pearce and Jevon with broken bones for a similar reason. In a similar joke to the different-looking Del and Rodney being brothers, the Driscoll brothers differ in height by as much as two feet, though in their case its the taller brother thats the brains. Only a pair of martial artists is enough to stop the Driscoll brothers and their hulking bodyguards in their tracks. The role taken by Roy Marsden was originally written for Anthony Hopkins but he was unable to appear due to other filming commitments