Not so much famous as infamous, the 1986 Christmas special A Royal Flush is renowned for being hated by most of the people involved in its production, especially writer John Sullivan. Sullivan felt, correctly, that Del comes across as too cruel and unpleasant in the episode. Although this is often put down to the fact that Sullivan wasn't present for the filming of the pivotal dinner scene, the out-of-character behaviour Del displays is clearly present in the writing, including in the bizarrely flat final scene which seems to be stretching to give him a plausible motive for his actions but fails spectacularly to be either convincing or funny.
A Royal Flush finds Rodney falling for an aristocratic woman he meets in the market, who turns out to be the daughter of the Duke of Maylebury. With the whiff of wealth in his nostrils, Del then insinuates himself into the relationship, ruining a night at the opera and a weekend in the country in the process. The humour of the episode starts out light and sweet, if a little stilted, as Rodney meets Vicky and their chemistry begins to develop. But the moment Del becomes involved the episode becomes broad and repetitive, with the same culture-clash routine being played out again and again. This is cringe comedy before that term became popular but it's a poor fit for Only Fools and Horses. The only way for this sort of plot to work is if the antics escalate and come to some sort of comedic head but A Royal Flush simply plays the same boorish behaviour over and over. It may as well be punctuated each time with the same shot of a nauseated nob losing their monocle in horrified disbelief as they declare "I say!"
Del isn't completely out of character throughout. Some of his interruptions are good-natured enough, like offering everyone ice cream at the opera, and while his heart has generally been in the right place in most cases he's always been as willing to exploit his family up to a point as he has been determined to protect them. He's also arguably done worse to Rodney in the past, such as convincing him that he was wanted for sexual assault in the retrospectively problematic episode Wanted. But that was a story about Del's tendency to take jokes too far, while A Royal Flush feels like a story about him bulldozing through his brother's life for his own selfish gratification. The justification he gives in the final scene, that he feared for Rodney's safety when Special Branch discovered his drug conviction, is feeble and so casually breezed past that it barely registers. And the ending, in which he metes out a painful physical punishment to Rodney on top of everything else, is as unpleasant and unfunny as the much criticised dinner scene before it, in which David Jason's drunk acting feels too nasty and bereft of his usual comedic nuance.
It's hardly surprising that A Royal Flush is one of the least repeated episodes of Only Fools and Horses. Its awkward production history, which included several delays due to illness and a frantic editing process that wasn't finished until the morning the episode was due to air, likely contributed to its poor quality but the script itself feels beyond saving. Sullivan took a crack at it in 2005, overseeing a re-edit that cut out 18 minutes of footage that painted Del in an even worse light, as well as adding a laugh track that had originally been omitted due to time constraints. This new version is the only one I've ever seen but if this is the improved version then only morbid curiosity could possibly drive me to seek out the original. With no series produced the following year, fans had to wait for the next Christmas special to see whether the series could bounce back from this debacle.
A Royal Flush finds Rodney falling for an aristocratic woman he meets in the market, who turns out to be the daughter of the Duke of Maylebury. With the whiff of wealth in his nostrils, Del then insinuates himself into the relationship, ruining a night at the opera and a weekend in the country in the process. The humour of the episode starts out light and sweet, if a little stilted, as Rodney meets Vicky and their chemistry begins to develop. But the moment Del becomes involved the episode becomes broad and repetitive, with the same culture-clash routine being played out again and again. This is cringe comedy before that term became popular but it's a poor fit for Only Fools and Horses. The only way for this sort of plot to work is if the antics escalate and come to some sort of comedic head but A Royal Flush simply plays the same boorish behaviour over and over. It may as well be punctuated each time with the same shot of a nauseated nob losing their monocle in horrified disbelief as they declare "I say!"
Del isn't completely out of character throughout. Some of his interruptions are good-natured enough, like offering everyone ice cream at the opera, and while his heart has generally been in the right place in most cases he's always been as willing to exploit his family up to a point as he has been determined to protect them. He's also arguably done worse to Rodney in the past, such as convincing him that he was wanted for sexual assault in the retrospectively problematic episode Wanted. But that was a story about Del's tendency to take jokes too far, while A Royal Flush feels like a story about him bulldozing through his brother's life for his own selfish gratification. The justification he gives in the final scene, that he feared for Rodney's safety when Special Branch discovered his drug conviction, is feeble and so casually breezed past that it barely registers. And the ending, in which he metes out a painful physical punishment to Rodney on top of everything else, is as unpleasant and unfunny as the much criticised dinner scene before it, in which David Jason's drunk acting feels too nasty and bereft of his usual comedic nuance.
It's hardly surprising that A Royal Flush is one of the least repeated episodes of Only Fools and Horses. Its awkward production history, which included several delays due to illness and a frantic editing process that wasn't finished until the morning the episode was due to air, likely contributed to its poor quality but the script itself feels beyond saving. Sullivan took a crack at it in 2005, overseeing a re-edit that cut out 18 minutes of footage that painted Del in an even worse light, as well as adding a laugh track that had originally been omitted due to time constraints. This new version is the only one I've ever seen but if this is the improved version then only morbid curiosity could possibly drive me to seek out the original. With no series produced the following year, fans had to wait for the next Christmas special to see whether the series could bounce back from this debacle.
