It Never Rains… Episode Review
Brief: Del bumps into Alex the Travel-agent. Next moment the Trotters family holiday is underway. Everything seems to be going according to plan, until Grandad starts acting a bit strange. Then Granddad runs into a bit of trouble with the Spanish Police.
Transmitted: 25.11.1982
Duration: 30 minutes
Viewing Figures: 9.5 million
Trotters’ Independent Trading Company has been forced off the market, with the continuing downpour keeping most of Peckham indoors.
While drowning their sorrows in The Nag’s Head, Alex the travel agent mentions that business is slow and he can’t give holidays away at the moment. As a promotional gimmick, Del suggests offering an 80% discount on a holiday to the next customer in the shop – and who happens to walk by, but Derek Trotter.
Having sold sun-hats in the rain, Rodders has managed to earn some travel cash, but he is dismayed to learn that the 80% discount only extends to a grotty hotel in Benidorm. And despite not being included in the bargain, the brothers reluctantly pay for Grandad to join them on their escape to the sun.
During the whole holiday, Del and Rodney check out the local talent, while Grandad cramps their style. Especially when they bring two girls back to their apartment, only for the old man to scare them off with his dentures.
Things get a bit more serious when Grandad gets himself arrested. Despite fearing that old history is returning to haunt him – in the form of an incident ‘during the war’ – it turns out that he was arrested for jay-walking and is released without charge. Much to Del’s annoyance.
Episode Observations
- In It Never Rains, Del clearly says they are going to Benidorm on holiday. And Benidorm is full of tower blocks and high rise apartments along the beach. But on the beach scene in this episode there are no high rise buildings and the beach has grassy sand dunes on it. Whereas Benidorm beach is just pure sand.
- In It Never Rains, Grandad tells Del and Rodney while in jail that “us Trotters have never been good sailors” he obviously didn’t know uncle Albert then !
- In It Never Rains, Rodney Grandad says that, while in Tangiers, he and his friend tried to join the French Foreign Legion. In 1936 the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion was in Algeria (I believe it is now in Southern France). Tangiers is in Morocco and not Algeria. Although Grandad and his friend could have made the trip from Morocco to Algeria, it is not mentioned in the episode.
- In It Never Rains, Rodney says to Del ‘a father’s day card arrived for you’ if Rodney was pretending it wasn’t from him then he wouldn’t know what it was.
- In It Never Rains, Rodney splashes Del’s back with lager on the beach. In the next scene back at the hotel Rodney says he’s sorry about wetting his shirt and offers to get him a fresh one. Why ??? He didn’t spill the lager on his shirt.
- In It Never Rains, they used Bournemouth beach as the location for a holiday in Spain, one of my mates was the boy playing ball on the beach, living in Bournemouth, I know these things.
It Never Rains Script
The script will be downloadable from here
Did You Know?
Originally the episode was to be filmed in Spain but they run out of budget and settled for an extremely cold Bournemouth.
It Never Rains location
This is found today as the Alma Pub, which is on Chapel Market Islington
It is actually found in 2 episodes, the first one is It Never Rains and Diamonds are for Heather
Having watched this episode many times over many years, I have only just noticed that the jailor shows Rodney the middle finger!
Did you know at Bournemouth Beach in Dorset the BBC crew used stage lighting to imitate the appearance of the Sun for Benidorm scenes involving Del Boy, Grandad and Rodney.
I like the part when Rodney Trotter and Del went on holiday with their grandad.
There’s something that has always bothered me about this episode. Why would Alex sell the cheap holiday to Del? The whole point was to get customers into his travel agents.
Just noticed when Del’s talking to Alex the travel-agent in the Nags Head the scene has clearly been cut halfway through due to, I believe, David Jason forgetting his lines.
Just after the dialogue where Del says ‘you need a bit of a gimmick’ and Alex replies ‘Such as?’ you can see that David Jason has forgotten his next lines as he mumbles ‘Eh? Well….’ and then the camera angle suddenly changes to a close up of Del’s face as he explains his idea.
It has clearly been cut as Del’s hand is in a totally different position to the scene a split second earlier and the way he says ‘Eh? Well…..’ seems to me that David Jason was desperately trying to buy some time to remember his next lines. It does happen quite fast and is well edited, but if you watch it a few times you will notice it.
I bet there were loads of excellent out-takes that a lot of fans would pay good money to see. If only they’d kept them all it would have been brilliant.
As good as a new episode in my opinion.
Nice to see Rodney enjoying a holiday abroad – especially due to the fact that in the episode “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” he wasn’t allowed to fly to Oz due to his drugs charge some years earlier ! In the episode “The Unlucky Winner Is” he’s back in Spain again – and in “If They Could See Us Now” he’s practically touring the world !
yes but the difference being he was emmigating to Australia, not merely just going on holiday big difference.
I first watched this episode as a kid having never been to Spain. All my illusions were shattered when I grew up and discovered it was filmed in Bournemouth!
Does anyone know what month of the year they filmed it there?
Is the guy checking the passports at the airport also in the bill?
Yes. Graham Cole who played PC Tony Stamp in The Bill was the guy checking the passports..
The pub above is the wrong one `it is now called the hobgoblin`and when they were filming it was called `three johns` photo here…. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rollthedice/5043488276/
Where Grandad says ‘us Trotters have never been good sailors’, obviously this doesn’t fit in with the Uncle Albert storylines, but Uncle Albert wasn’t exactly know for being a good sailor as apparently every ship he sailed on sank!