10 Things You Didn't Know About Only Fools & Horses

As mentioned earlier, John Sullivan took a lot of inspiration for his writing from real-life stories that he had either experienced or heard about. One such story came from his father and gave us the iconic ‘Chandelier Scene’ in Only Fools & Horses.

Sullivan’s father worked as a plumber in the 1930s and was worked on a job where the hilarious scene actually took place. A mix up occurred and resulted in the wrong chandelier dropping and smashing on the floor, as it did with the Trotters. Sullivan’s father ended up getting sacked due to this incident and failed to see the funny side of it when he told his son about the story, although he did later admit it was funny after the episode aired on television.

The scene was written into the show and became one of the most memorable scenes in British sitcom history, but it needed to be captured in one take, otherwise the scene would never have seen the light of day.

Despite only being a replica, the chandelier used cost the production team around £6000, therefore they could only afford to make one. If David Jason or Nicholas Lyndhurst had messed up or laughed during the recording there would have been no chance for a re-take and the iconic moment would have been lost forever.