As One Door Closes Episode Review
Brief: When Delboy’s hooky ‘louvry’ door deal, financed with Denzil’s redundancy money, falls through, the boys attempt to repay him by catching a rare butterfly. Just when things looked like they were working out friendly Denzil comes along.
Transmitted: 04.04.1985
Duration: 30 minutes
Viewing Figures: 14.2 million
The trouble starts when Del agrees to provide painter and decorator Brendan O’Shaughnessy with enough louvre doors to refit an entire housing estate in Nunhead.
Del’s supplier, Teddy Cummings, only stocks and supplies in bulk, so it’s up to the Trotters to find two grand by the next day or there’s no chance of getting the doors.
As usual, a solution turns up in the form of Denzil’s redundancy money, which they somehow convince him to part with, only to be told by O’Shaughnessy that the doors he’s bought aren’t needed. And to make things worse, the doors turn out to be stolen.
It’s not long before Denzil and his five brothers come looking for their money, so with nowhere else to go, the Trotters visit their mother’s grave – a favourite refuge for Del in times of trouble.
At their mother’s graveside, Rodney notices a rare butterfly from the cover of his magazine, that’s worth about £3,000 to collectors. After chasing the butterfly around the churchyard, the park and the boating lake, they finally capture it, only for Denzil to wander past and squash it.
Episode Observations
- In As One Door Closes, You can tell that the Butterfly is fake, especially when del is trying to catch it on the roof of the building, you can clearly see the string.
- In As One Door Closes, Del says when they are in the cemetary that Grandad is in the garden of ‘external peace’ which surely means he was cremated yet In ‘Strained Relations’,Grandad has been buried.
- In As One Door Closes, when Del is on the phone, finding out that the designer has changed their mind, as he puts the phone down the hand piece falls apart and David Jason appears to just about stop himself from having a laugh out loud.
- In As One Door Closes, the whole of the scene in the cemetary is actualy filmed in a studio. Although it is very realistic look at the contours on the screen. They only start filming outside when Del is slowly climing the roof for the butterfly!
- In As One Door Closes, After Del pushes Rodney into the water he takes ages to stand up, while Del is talking to Albert Rodney is just flapping his arms around. If the water’s only 3 feet deep he’d be able to stand up straight away.
- In As One Door Closes, Rodney’s age is 24, yet three series earlier in “Big Brother” he is 23 !! wish we could all age as well!
- In As One Door Closes, at the beginning of the episode the bloke with the louvre (lowvery) doors is called “TEDDY” cummings, Later Del tells Rodney that “TOMMY” cummings was chucking ’em out of the first floor window.
- In As one Door Closes, at the scene when they go to there Mums gravestone the bench is several footsteps away and the ground directly behind the bench is clear, yet in “Yellow Peril” Del and Rodney go to there Mums graveyard, and the bench is one step away from the elaborate gravestone, also directly behind the bench are other gravestones, clearly a different cemetery.
- In As one Door Closes, When Del first calls out to Denzil after hearing he has redundancy money, and Denzil shouts back: “You’re not having any!”, he is standing next to the man who had earlier inquired about the sharpness of Del’s trimming combs. Denzil then runs through the hanging bag which Del pushes into Rodney while in pursuit, then suddenly the pair find themselves running past the customer again. Where did he spring from? They should have left him behind ages ago!
As One Door Closes Script
The script will be downloadable from here
Did You Know?
The idea for the script was based on an article of a rare butterfly John Sullivan had read about.
Does anybody know the 2nd reggae song denzel was listening to at the very end as he goes by on his roller skates.
Does anyone know why they changed the line below? Originally Linford Christie was used, then the line was cut from DVD’s now it has Seb Coe badly dubbed instead.
He chased him he did! A mile and ‘alf through Deptford!
Denzil was 300 yards from his front door. And he put in a kick! I tell you, Seb Coe ain’t even in the picture when he’s got a smell of money in his nostrils!
Whenever Del, Rodney and Uncle Albert are heading out to the balcony, watch carefully at the curtain and you can see the microphone moving from right to left.
The cemetery scene was actually all filmed on location. As this scene is quite a long one, they must’ve decided to take studio cameras on location and record to video tape. Then, when the scene cuts to Del on the roof (shot on an entirely different day), they switched back to film. At the time, film was a more traditional medium for location shooting as the equipment was compact, agile and didn’t require external recording devices or mains power.
This reminds me of a great Monty Python sketch where Graham Chapman’s character announces, ‘Gentlemen. This room is surrounded by film”. Very funny.
I think the most jarring use of film are the flat scenes in To Hull and Back! Even as a kid, I knew something looked very different, I just couldn’t work out what it was.
i love this quote from this episode
Oh yeah. There’s nothing like that good ol’ fashioned cockney knees-up number, Knees-Up Mother Patel.
It’s a great line, probably be cut with the PC squad
How come del had to raise 2 grand to get the “louvry” doors when they was nicking them from the warehouse. Why does del pay teddy Cummings 2 grand to assist him in stealing some doors?
I was in Ravenscourt Park today where the end of the butterfly scene was filmed. Took a couple of photos and posted them on this site
http://www.findthatlocation.com/Location/Television/NO2250
At this years convention I told Paul Barber how much I liked the scene with the butterfly. He responded by getting me to put my hands out to low five me whilst saying the line ‘I’ll see you down the pub later Del’ What a great guy for humouring me, he’s probably sick of it.
were Denzils brothers actually coming for Del, because at the time Denzil would have been at the job centre after the pursuit at the market, then he was skating through the park so he wouldn’t have found time to set his brothers on Del
To me in that episode the voice of Nicholas sounded as if he had a cold or so – somewhat throaty, little bit nasal… or is it my ears?
I also wondered if they gave Nicholas a wetsuit or something else for underwear for that water scene, as you can see that the wheather must have been cold and I think this bath was not really funny then ;-)
Can anybody tell us were the park scenes in ‘As one door closes’ were filmed?
Ravenscourt Park, West London on the district line
In As one Door Closes, watch Delboy all the time during the conversation with Rodney when he thinks his hair is falling out. At one point David Jason begins speaking over Buster Merryfield’s lines and is also about to stand up to walk over to Rodney who is standing at the mirror. He realizes he is too soon and sits back down again and waits for Albert to finish his lines first!
what is the name of the song denzil is listening to at the market
Big Youth – Johnny Reggae
Classic episode. Denzil’s always been one of my favourites, and the chase through the market is priceless!!!
In As one Door Closes, Del dials Brendan’s number but his first words in the call were “Tell him I’ve got the louvre doors and he can pick them up any time he likes”. Surely he needed to tell the person who answered the phone who he was first? Or inquire as to whether Brendan was there?