Rock and chips - Prequel to Only fools and horses - Nicholas lyndhurst as Freddie the Frog

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Rock and chips the prequel to Only fools and horses - Watch enough of it and its jour telavive will get you in the end

When I first spotted Rock and chips and realised what it was I was hit with a mix of excitement and trepidation. A prequel to the monolith of British comedy that was Only fools and horses was always going to be a risk. On the face of things it was either going to work or be an absolute shambles.

After watching the first fifteen minutes, I’d already made up my mind that it was a shocker. It all felt unnecessary and amateurish; a desperate attempt to dig up the class of the past, in particular by Nicolas Lyndhurst who took a starring role as the much talked of Freddy the frog. Inbetweeners star James Buckley had boots too big to fill as Del Boy and Kellie Bright’s convincing display as Mrs Trotter just didn’t seem enough to make the show worth the effort.

Then there was the shoddy 1960s period features that seemed like they had been knocked up for a low budget play in Skegness. Everything had a forced and faked feel to it and it wasn’t long before I started to resent the production.

However, within half an hour, I’d undergone a complete ninety something degree sort of turn around. The story of the Trotters is so ingrained in my soul from a lifetime of it’s influence that I couldn’t help but be drawn into the plot. Lyndhurst went from being a clunky, ill advised mistake, to the life and breath of the almost mythical Freddie the frog. I stopped seeing Rodney in disguise and started to buy into the character. Buckley started to grow into the scaled down boots of the legend of Derek Trotter and Bright lit everything up beautifully, bringing the story of Rodney’s birth to life.

Obviously, my sentimentality overwhelmed me a little, but if you’re half as much of a fan of Only fools and horses as I am then you’ll eventually succumb to the charms of Rock and Chips too.

3.9/5