The Chance of a Lunchtime

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Only Fools and Horses episode
"The Chance of a Lunchtime"
Series	7
Writer	John Sullivan
Director	Tony Dow
Producer	Gareth Gwenlan
Duration	50 minutes
Airdate	6 January 1991
Audience	16.6 million

The Chance of a Lunchtime is an episode of the BBC sit-com, Only Fools and Horses. It was the second episode of series 7, and first broadcast on 6 January 1991.

1 Synopsis
2 Story Arc
3 Errors
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Raquel has been offered the chance to really get her acting career off the ground by auditioning for the part of Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It, and Del Boy is behind her all the way for it.

Meanwhile, Del, knowing that Rodney hasn't spoken to her since she got back from her holiday, goes round to see Cassandra, as well as fix the door to her and Rodney's flat. Del then tells Cassandra that Rodney wants to meet up with her tonight at a little restaurant over Wapping Way at 7:30pm. Cassandra agrees to the date and time.

Later, back at Nelson Mandela House, Del promises to help Raquel rehearse. Just then, Rodney is about to open the front door when Del urges him to ring the doorbell. Rodney does so, and the Star-Spangled Banner plays, because Del has just installed his latest item to flog: the Anthachime, a doorbell that plays 36 different national anthems. Del then tells Rodney the same thing he told Cassandra: meeting up at the restaurant in Wapping Way at 7:30pm. Rodney also agrees to the date and time.

Sometime later at the Nag's Head, Del fails to convince Mike to buy an Anthachime, but has better luck when Trigger buys one. In the background, a 38-year-old peroxide blonde woman, who's obviously had too much to drink and now wants a taxi to take her to Battersea. Trigger tells Del that he was at his sister's house at the weekend for her 39th birthday. Marlene and Boycie, along with their son Tyler, enter. Boycie complains about how many toys that Marlene is getting for Tyler. Marlene asks Del is he misses Rodney when he got married to Cassandra and went to work for her father's printing firm. Del answers with "Oh yeah, I missed him like George Michael missed Andrew Ridgely." Marlene takes Tyler and leaves. Boycie promises Marlene that he'll play Mexico Forever on the front door when he gets home shortly. As Boycie waves to his son, Del, Mike, and Trigger do so as well, leaving Boycie leaving the pub angry, while the others laugh.

Meanwhile, at the restaurant in Wapping Way, Rodney and Cassandra both show up, and their chat gets off to a rocky start by mentioning the events of "Rodney Come Home", but eventually, they both make up after reazlizing that Del was the one who really set all this up. They decide not to eat, and just decide to head back to their flat.

Back at the Nag's Head, the drunken woman throws herself all over Del, who barely remembers her as Trudy, another old girlfriend from 1970. Del and Trudy broke up after Rodney's pet mouse nested in one of her wings. The last time Del saw Trudy was on a caravan site in Sheerness. In the middle of the night, their caravan got hit by lightning. Trudy went running out in the rain - wearing no drawers and a polo-neck jumper. Rodney enters to tell Del the good news about his date with Cassandra, as well as mention that he saw Raquel and Albert getting off a bus. This makes Del worried, so he asks Rodney to take Trudy to her taxi.

Outside, Rodney tries to keep Trudy from falling, but Cassandra drives by, sees what's happening, thinks Rodney is kissing Trudy, and speeds off into the night in a huff. Rodney lets Trudy fall to the ground, races back to his door, fails to open the door, and rings the doorbell which plays the French National Anthem, before walking back to Nelson Mandela House.

Back at Trotter Towers, Rodney returns to the flat dejected with the bad news, as Del and Raquel rehearse. As Raquel continues her rehearsal in the bedroom, Del admits that he didn't know Cassandra would see Rodney with Trudy. Albert asks if Cassandra will tell her father Alan. Just then, Alan phones the flat, asking for Rodney. Del tells him that Rodney's asleep, as well as tell his younger brother that his father-in-law wants to see him in work tomorrow, first thing in the morning. Del follows Raquel into the bedroom, as Rodney worries that Alan is going to fire him. Albert then tells his latest boring war story: Albert and the rest of his shipmates docked at Valletta, on their way to Greece. They had a chief communications officer on board named Tubby Fox, who was a real party animal. He got the chance, and then one night, Tubby was on duty when the captain caught him in the radio room with a bottle of gin in one hand and a Maltese girl in the other. The captain put Tubby on a charge and started court-martial proceedings. The Navy had a wartime rule - only commissioned officers were allowed to control the radio room. Now, Tubby was the only communications officer on board, and he resigned his commission, which meant the ship couldn't sail! The captain had no choice but to refuse to accept Tubby's resignation. Once he'd done that, he couldn't proceed with the court martial. It was checkmate, which meant they needed Tubby more than he needed them. The moral of Albert's story is that Rodney should realize his own importance. Tubby Fox did, and he went on to captain his own submarine-hunter. This makes Rodney more relieved with his situation, so he thanks his uncle and goes off to bed. Albert is left alone in the lounge to lament that Tubby Fox died in Palermo harbour, by dropping a depth-charge - in nine feet of water.

The next day, at Alan Parry's printing firm, Rodney enters Alan's office and leaves an envelope on his desk. Alan enters all happy and excited, because he's got the three-year contract from Ron Carey from the Harvey's mail-order people, which means Alan's printing firm prints all their junk mail, their catalogues, and their office stationary. As they head out to look for a new loctation to move the printing firm to, Alan refuses to listen to what happened between Rodney and Cassandra last night. Meanwhile, Del and Raquel have lunch with Adrian, the director of the play, and his gay partner, Jules.

Later that day, back at Trotter Towers, Rodney is shocked to find out that Alan has cheerfully accepted his letter of resignation and replaced him with a spotty-faced kid named Elvis.

Much later that night, Raquel glumly tells Del that the Shakespeare play is a tour around schools, and that she turned it because she's pregnant. Del is happy to hear the news and also tells Albert and Rodney before embracing with Raquel.

[edit] Story Arc

Rodney quits working for Alan Parry, yet doesn't rejoin Trotters Independent Traders until "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Uncle".

[edit] Errors

When Del is in bed with Raquel, the extremely tacky purple headboard has a large golden heart within its design, whereas in "Modern Men", the heart was not incorporated within the design.
When Del runs out into the hallway to call Albert and Rodney when he hears that Raquel is pregnant, he runs to the door which is the sitting room door to call Albert who is in his bedroom, but all that's there is a wall which is obviously not there in past episodes (haunting scene of "Ashes to Ashes" etc.).