Sleepless in Peckham

Only Fools and Horses episode
"Sleepless in Peckham"
Series	Christmas Special
Writer	John Sullivan
Director	Tony Dow
Producer	Gareth Gwenlan
Duration	75 minutes
Airdate	25 December 2003
Audience	15.50 million [1]

"Sleepless in Peckham...!" is an episode of BBC sitcom, Only Fools and Horses, first screened on 25 December 2003 as the third and final part of the early 2000s Christmas trilogy, the eighteenth Christmas special, and as the final episode of the entire series.^[2]

Synopsis

All seems calm and peaceful at Nelson Mandela House. Cassandra is in the late stages of pregnancy, which means Rodney will finally become a father. Del Boy takes Raquel's washing-up gloves and drives to the cemetery. At the cemetery, Del is cleaning up the monument of his and Rodney's mother Joan. It is revealed that after they became millionaires, the Trotters used some of their money to give their mother's grave a makeover.

Later, at The Nag's Head, Sid tells Trigger (who has been creating a portable backscratcher made out of chopsticks) that he got some suggestions from Mike on how to make the pub look a lot better. He also shows Rodney, Del, Trigger, and Mickey Pearce an old photograph of the very first Jolly Boys' Outing in 1960. Del mentions the events of the last one when his dodgy radio blew up their coach, as well as the fact that there were no more because the coach company were afraid of losing another coach. They also notice that Marlene has been mysteriously absent for several weeks. Mickey and Sid quickly believe that Boycie killed her.

Back at the flat, Del helps Rodney with an idea for a film about Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts crashing an aeroplane on an uninhabited island of cavepeople, including Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. The next day, Rodney and Raquel berate Del because they are nowhere near the total sum of money that they owe the Inland Revenue. Del is deeply hurt when Raquel tells him "only women bleed", and he angrily recounts his own life of having to take care of both Rodney and Grandad after their father abandoned them. As Raquel goes to lie down, Del privately says to Rodney that if they do get evicted, then he and Raquel will go their separate ways, but he and Raquel reconcile.

The next day, the Trotter Brothers and Trigger catch Denzil at a pizzeria and ask him if he made off with Marlene. Denzil says that he hasn't seen Marlene recently either and has actually been in hospital getting treatment for piles. This prompts Del and Rodney to go straight to Boycie and ask him if he murdered his wife and buried her in the garden. The Trotter Brothers arrive at Boycie's house and ask him, and he replies that he didn't murder Marlene since she's home and upstairs asleep. Boycie promises that he'll bring Marlene with him to the Nag's Head tonight. That night, at the Nag's Head, Boycie arrives with Marlene, who shows everybody that the reason why she was absent for the last couple of weeks was to get her chest surgically enhanced. Raquel wisecracks at the sight of it, and Boycie and Marlene are forced by Sid to pay for everyone's drinks.

With only a few days left before the Trotters are evicted from Nelson Mandela House, Rodney gets an enlarged copy of the 1960 Jolly Boys' Outing photo and shows it to Cassandra at a restaurant. He shows her who was in the photo: Del, Boycie, Trigger, Denzil, Sid, Roy Slater, Grandad, Reg—and local gentleman thief Freddie "The Frog" Robdal, (pictured as Nicholas Lyndhurst) who bears an uncanny resemblance to Rodney. Rodney then tells Cassandra that Robdal is his biological father, explaining the affair he had with Joan Trotter. Meanwhile, back at the flat, after returning from the market, Del finds the original photo and comes to the conclusion that Rodney has learned the horrible truth. Del tells Raquel about how he only knew Robdal as "Uncle Fred" back in the 1960s, as well as mention that only Joan, Albert, and Trigger's Aunt Renee knew that Robdal was Rodney's real father, yet Del was unaware of it until Albert told him after getting drunk at a party. Del refused to tell Rodney about it out of fear of breaking his brother's heart. Raquel and Cassandra both ask Del and Rodney why they won't tell each other. The Trotter Brothers both answer that it would indeed break the other's heart.

The next morning, Del and Rodney are called to see a solicitor named Mr. Cartwright, thinking that they failed to pay the Inland Revenue. But fortunately, Mr. Cartwright brings good news to the Trotter Brothers, and it has plenty to do with their late Uncle Albert, who invested his share of the Trotter fortune in a much safer spot prior to his death, while his nephews invested their shares in the Central American market. And according to his will, Albert wanted to give his enlarged share of the fortune to his nephews, leaving them with £145,000 each. Del and Rodney are both stunned by all this, until Del gets a phone call from Raquel that Cassandra's gone into labour. Del and Rodney race to the hospital and almost end up in the wrong delivery room, but eventually make their way to delivery room #16, where Raquel and Damien wait outside with good and bad news. The bad news is that Cassandra had to be given a Caesarean section. The good news is that Rodney and Cassandra are now the parents of a baby girl. As Rodney looks at his newborn daughter, Raquel asks Del what the good news he had was, only for Del to say that that he'll tell her later but mentions Albert as the reason.

A few days later, Rodney and his daughter are in the cemetery, as Rodney looks up to the heavens and asks his mother if Freddie the Frog ever really loved her, and that if she ever sees Albert, Joan should tell him that Rodney and Del said thanks. Del also shows up, and asks Rodney if he came up with a name for his daughter. Rodney just hints at Del to look at their mother's grave, which now reads: "Here lies Joan Mavis Trotter. Fell asleep 12 March 1964. Wife of Reg. Mother of Del Boy and Rodney. Grandmother of Damien and Joan." Finally, as they're leaving the cemetery, Rodney asks Del if he's anything like his father, Freddie the Frog. Del replies firmly by saying that Robdal was "a womaniser, a home-breaker, a con-man, a thief, a liar, and a cheat... So no Rodney, you're nothing like him." The Trotter Brothers then leave the cemetery and drive off in their three-wheeled van back home to Nelson Mandela House, with a new Joan Trotter for the world.

Note

Trigger appears for the last time in this episode, making him the only character apart from Del and Rodney to appear in both the first ("Big Brother") and final episodes of the series.

This final episode was viewed by two out of three British households on Christmas Day 2003

Music

• Travis - "Sing"
• Atomic Kitten - "Eternal Flame"
• Toploader - "Dancing in the Moonlight"
• Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way"
• Stereophonics - "Have a Nice Day"
• "Unchained Melody" (cover)
• David Bowie - Space Oddity (cover)

References

External links

• "Sleepless in Peckham" at BBC Online
• Sleepless in Peckham at IMDb