From Prussia with Love Episode Review
Brief: When a German damsel turns up in the Nag’s Head she’s definitely in distress – and nine months pregnant at that. Rodney’s all beer and sympathy but Del’s got an idea – could this be the answer to Boycie and Marlene’s dreams of a child and a golden opportunity to make a few bob along the way?.
Transmitted: 31.08.1985
Duration: 30 minutes
Viewing Figures: 12.1 million
It’s closing time at The Nag’s Head, and Mike the landlord is having problems clearing everyone out, particularly a young pregnant foreign girl who doesn’t seem to speak Peckham English.
Del and Rodney offer to help, and despite Del Boy’s dodgy French, they work out that Anna is from Germany, and she’s been chucked out on the street and was considering getting her child adopted.
They leave Rodney to take Anna to a hotel, but he ends up bringing her back to the flat, where she explains that, Spencer, the son of the family she was working for as an au pair got her pregnant and then denied it all.
After fuming about Rodney bringing another ‘waif and stray’ home, Del Boy considers what can be done with Anna’s unwanted baby – and the first person he thinks of is Boycie. For year’s Marlene and Boycie have been trying for a child, with no success, and now for a mere three grand, Del is offering them the chance to have their very own baby boy.
The stress is clearly getting to Anna, and she begins to go into labour. Later on Del, Boycie and Marlene all gather round in the lounge waiting for Anna and Rodney return from hospital. All is well until Rodney lets Del Boy know that the Anna’s baby is a girl… and that Spencer’s parents were actually West Indian!
Episode Observations
- In From Prussia with Love, this episode is where the wallpaper in the trotters living room changes, compare from series 4 to series five.
- In From Prussia with Love, Towards the end of the episode, Del is meant to say to Boycie: ‘I know what I told you about it being a boy but it aint’. However, he actually says: ‘I know what I told you about it being a girl but it aint’, when of course it is.
- In From Prussia with Love, Erica Hoffman played the pregnant German girl, yet 3 years later in “Jolly Boys Outing” she played the women at the candy floss stand.
From Prussia with Love Script
The script will be downloadable from here
Did You Know?
This episode was postponed from Series 4, due to having to many episodes from the rewriting of scripts after Leonards death.
I read an anecdote in a book that reminded me of Uncle Albert’s hilarious attempt to talk to the German girl. Here is the passage:
“Neither is the public in British courts immune from eccentricity. There was a case in a magistrate’s court – or so the story goes, as I haven’t found the case myself – where a German tourist was accused of shoplifting. The defendant made out he couldn’t understand English, so the magistrate asked if anyone in court could speak German. A man in the public gallery volunteered, and came down to the well of the court.
Magistrate: ‘Ask him his name.’
Man, shouting in mock-German: ‘VOT IS YOUR NAME?’
They were both jailed.”
This passage is from “Eccentric London” by Benedict le Vay.
I like to think i know most of the cockney phrases on the show but one has always baffeled me . What does the word FENICK mean when Albert offers the girl a piece of haddock in the flat then turns and says with a wink …. Keep your hand on your Fenick ?
Just looked at the script and its actually in the pub when Albert said it as he leaves and its spelt PHENIGG or something ??
It’s Pfennig- the German word for penny and the sub-unit of the old Deutsche Mark before Germany adopted the Euro as currency. I don’t think it’s rhyming slang for anything, I think Albert’s just trying to be smutty. (Use your imagination).
In the episode, he does say about ‘your little baby boy…’ and not as stated above 😁 . However, I’d like to see otherwise if anyone has anything different …
Del does say baby boy to begin with but at approximately 25m 38s he does say: “I know I told you it was going to be a girl, but it ain’t”.
When Del says “I just don’t know what’s been happening to me just lately! I’ve got more relatives crawling out of the woodwork than Blake Carrington” you can tell that that line was written for series 4 one year earlier when Uncle Albert first turned up. Of course this episode was postponed from series 4 due to having too many episodes from the rewriting of scripts after Leonards death.
I wonder how different this episode would’ve been if Grandad was in it?
You can almost hear him saying Albert’s line ‘No good asking me son, I aint never flogged a baby before’
Very true. Although I can’t imagine him saying ‘vot ees your nem?’
I think Albert made that line his own.
Are there any cuts in the last scene, either on the dvd or when it’s repeated on TV?