Tessa Peake-Jones says Only Fools and Horses is ‘best left alone’

Tessa Peake-Jones has said beloved sitcom Only Fools And Horses is “best left alone” as she addressed the possibility of a reboot ahead of the sitcom’s 45th anniversary.

The comedy, a ratings powerhouse for the BBC since it first aired in 1981, follows the Trotter family led by smooth-talking market trader Derek “Del Boy” Trotter (Sir David Jason), and his naive younger brother, Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst).

Peake-Jones, now 68, rose to fame when she joined the show in 1988 as Del Boy’s love interest and eventual wife, Raquel Turner.

In an interview with The Express, the actress described the comedy as a “jewel”, adding: “You don’t want to fiddle about with it.”

Speaking about the possibility of a revival or a reboot, she said: “It’s best left alone.”

Peake-Jones hailed writer John Sullivan, who died in 2011 at the age of 64, as “the genius behind the show”.

“I don’t think you could ever repeat that, and I hope they don’t.

“Some reboots, or when they’ve brought everyone back for a prequel, just haven’t worked.

“We get letters from youngsters all the time saying, ‘Oh, my granddad watched this show’, or ‘My parents watched this, and they loved it’, so it passes down the generations.

“I think leave it like that because it’s a bit like a jewel – you don’t want to fiddle about with it.”

Peake-Jones is among the cast members who will reunite for a documentary series to air on U&Gold later this year to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the first broadcast.

Only Fools And Horses: The Lost Archive will air behind-the-scenes footage as well as new material and previously unseen clips from the series.

Peake-Jones told the newspaper it was “quite depressing” to watch the footage back, adding: “You’re looking back at something 30 years ago, and we’re all a lot older now, so you just look so different.”

She added: “You think, ‘Oh, we were in our prime’, which is quite a weird thing to be witnessing decades later. It’s a very odd experience.

“It was a bit like torture to be forced to sit on the sofa and watch this stuff back from 30 years ago, it really was, but it’s part of the job.”

The actress said she spent a day with Sir David during the documentary filming, adding: “It was harder for David because some of that stuff for him is looking back 40 years, which I know he finds quite odd.

“He said, ‘Isn’t it odd to see yourself looking so much younger?'”

Only Fools And Horses ran for 22 years and became known for its popular phrases such as “This time next year, we’ll be millionaires”, “Lovely jubbly” and “Cushty”.

Set in Peckham, it followed the colourful escapades of market trader Del Boy and his less streetwise younger brother as they tried to become rich.

The final episode was broadcast in 2003 and O’Sullivan went on to write two related shows for the BBC: The Green Green Grass, which followed characters Boycie and Marlene moving to Shropshire and aired from 2005-2009, and a prequel miniseries called Rock & Chips and set in the 1960s that was shown in 2010.

A musical adaptation co-written by and starring Paul Whitehouse opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2019and toured across the UK and Ireland in 2024 and 2025.