Tea for Three

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Only Fools and Horses episode
"Tea For Three"
Series	5
Writer	John Sullivan
Director	Mandie Fletcher
Producer	Ray Butt
Duration	30 minutes
Airdate	21 September 1986
Audience	16.5 million

Tea For Three is an episode of the BBC sit-com, Only Fools and Horses. It was the fourth episode of series 5, and was first screened on 21 September 1986.

1 Synopsis
2 Trivia
3 Errors
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

It's Talent Night at the Nag's Head, and Albert is depressed because his wife Ada is in the hospital. Del Boy and Rodney suggest taking him down to the chinky to cheer him up. Trigger can't go because he's waiting for his niece Lisa to arrive. Del and Rodney both seem to remember her back from their childhood days.

When Lisa, now aged 25, arrives, Del and Rodney both fight for her affection and invite her over to Nelson Mandela House for tea tomorrow. In the meantime, Albert gets up on the stage and sings the love ballad Ada in tribute to his dear sick wife.

The next day, Albert is trying out the new solarium to cure his hangover. Rodney thinks that Albert made a fool out of himself getting up on the Nag's Head stage and singing Ada. But to Rodney's surprise, Albert actually won the talent contest. Del comes in with a big bag of food for tonight's tea with Lisa. Rodney says that he also made a contribution: cheese, because it's all he can afford. As the Trotter brothers start to argue, Albert tells them to pack it in, because it's been like this since last night. So Albert decides to go down to the Legion. As Rodney has a go at the solarium, Albert tells his nephew about the time that he and Grandad fell out over the affection of Ada and never spoke to each other again. But Rodney falls asleep. Albert leaves, and Del whacks up the timer on the solarium before leaving too.

Later that night, Del and Lisa are getting on well, while Rodney nurses his sunburnt face. Lisa tells the Trotter brothers that she has some friends who run a hang gliding club, in which Del lies by saying he enjoys it. This gives Rodney an idea in order to get back at Del for burning his face. Rodney tells Lisa privately that they should give Del a chance to hang glide as a surprise for his 37th birthday.

The following morning in Winchester, Del is shocked to hear that he is going to hang glide. He and Rodney meet the owner of the hang gliding club, Andy. Del tries to talk his way out of flying the hang glider, but to no avail. He also knows that Rodney did this just to humiliate his older brother. Rodney, with a change of heart, decides to help Del out with the following plan: Del will pretend to be keen to hang glide, and he'll put all the gear on. And just when Del is about to take off, Rodney will come up to him and say that they've got a very important phone call from London, and have to go back. Del agrees to this plan. But just as Del does everything on his part, Rodney betrays him at the last second. Del, not wanting to lose face in front of Lisa, actually flies the hang glider - right out to sea.

12 hours later back at the flat, Rodney, feeling guilty about what he did, is studying a map. Then Trigger and Mike show up with a wheelchair-bound Del, who apologizes to Rodney for tampering with the solarium controls. Rodney, on the other hand, thinks that Del is pretending to be crippled, and is proven right when Del leaps out of the wheelchair in front of Albert, Mike, and Trigger. Del then tells the story about how he was stuck in the air for three hours, and how he crashed into a television transmitter in Redhill, causing Del to fall on top of a courting couple. That in turn reminds Trigger to tell the others that Lisa's set the date for her wedding to Andy, who she has actually been engaged to for over a year. Mike offers to open the Nag's Head early for a celebratory drink, and Trigger and Albert join him - but not before Albert has a good laugh at Del and Rodney's expense.

[edit] Trivia

When the hanglider scene was filmed, David Jason, who is a trained hang glider pilot, scuba diver, and swims with dolphins, wanted to actually fly the hang glider himself! But the BBC said it was too dangerous for him to fly it, for insurance reasons.
The scene where Albert gets on the stage and sings Ada is edited out of the Region 2 DVD version of this episode for contractual reasons.

[edit] Errors

Rodney says he remembers Lisa from years back, but in "Big Brother", Rodney had to be introduced to Lisa's uncle Trigger as if they had never met before.
Lisa says that she is 25, so that would have made her born about 1961. However in "The Chance of a Lunchtime" (which takes place in 1991) Trigger's younger sister, Lisa's mother, has had her 39th birthday. By then Lisa would be about 30. So Trigger's sister had Lisa when she was only 9 years old then.