It seems not a week goes by without another of Britain’s best-loved sitcoms getting a makeover. This time it’s the turn of Only Fools & Horses, which the BBC have announced is getting a reboot under a new title, “Only Brexiters & Unicorns”.
The show will be written by Jim Sullivan, son of John Sullivan who wrote the original. On being asked about the viability of a remake, he had this to say:
“Only Fools & Horses has always reflected the times – Del and Rodney moved with the times, so it can be updated to any time period and will still work in principle, as long as you get the characters right.”
Half the work in getting the characters right is the casting, and the cast looks promising. The part of Del Boy in this updated version will be played by Nigel Farage. He bangs out the old catchphrases “you know it makes sense!” and “this time next year we’ll be millionaires!” with absolute conviction – and an ever-dwindling bank balance in the case of the latter.
Del’s long-suffering brother Rodney, who doesn’t approve of Del’s schemes but still goes along with them, is here played by Jeremy Corbyn, while the role of old seadog Uncle Albert, who tries to talk them out of it with his old tales that always begin with the catchphrase “during the war”, has been given to John Major.
Other supporting roles have also been allocated: the idiot Trigger who would always spout total rubbish yet believe it firmly, will be played by Theresa May, while the snobbish Boycie will be played by Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The new version will depict life in post-Brexit Britain, just as the old one depicted life under Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s. Del and Rodney are the same as ever, traders trying to make it in a broken country. Although this time there is humour to be derived from the sudden absence of European health & safety standards in the country.
The pilot episode features a nod to the original with a remake of the scene where Del falls through the gap in bar. In this version, Nigel Farage’s version of the character attempts to sue the pub after falling and hurting himself, but is scuppered by a safety notice in plain sight which he failed to spot, warning people not to lean against the bar when the hatch is up. When it transpires that the safety notice was an EU directive, he attempts to blame the EU for restrictive health & safety measures, completely forgetting that they were designed to stop him from having his fall in the first place.
Other episodes will include the characters disregarding more EU health & safety regulations to clean a chandelier on the cheap, and acquiring some British-made inflatable sex dolls that have accidentally been fitted with a dangerous explosive gas.
The remake will hit our screens in March 2019, so have a watch. You know it makes sense.