Convention 2000
It Never Rains…It Floods!
For the second year running, the annual Only Fools & Horses Convention was held at Ongar Leisure Centre, Essex. The skies were clear in the morning and the sun was shining brightly on what was to be a very successful convention.When I arrived at the venue, about 5 or 6 Trotter three-wheeled vans were gathered in the car park with happy fans having their photographs taken.
The day started at 12pm on Sunday 29th October. For the first hour, fans were busily buying items from the merchandise stalls. Some great new items were on sale including a “Trotter’s pre-blessed bottle of wine” and fans were pleased to be able to purchase the Complete Series 7, packaged in the limited edition leopard skin, a day before the general release date!
Just before the live sketch started, Kenneth MacDonald took to the stage and was greeted with a rapturous reception. He told fans that the main factor stopping new episodes of Only Fools & Horses being made was that the BBC are not sure whether to bring it back because they think after 4 years since the last episode the popularity would have fallen! Well of course, Only Fools & Horses will always be popular and I think it has become even more popular since the final episode in fact. Ken told everybody that we MUST all write to the BBC to tell them how popular the show is and what it means to us to get a new series. “If you write to them to tell them to bring it back, they will. It’s true.”At about 1pm, the main event of the day took place – the live, never to be seen again, exclusive sketch performed by Kenneth MacDonald as Mike, John Challis as Boycie and Sue Holderness as Marlene! As the star-trio made their entrance onto the stage, they received a deservedly enormous reception by fans. It was brilliant to see Ken, John and Sue play the characters in the specially written short script, “Virgin Business”. For the entire live sketch, video cameras were fixed on the stage and flashes dazzled the hall. We were even treated to hearing Boycie’s famous laugh!
The guests then kindly answered several questions from the audience. One fan asked which episode was their favourite, with Ken replying “The Jolly Boys’ Outing” and John’s favourite was “The Sky’s the Limit” with Sue’s favourite being “From Prussia With Love”. When asked if they met up with each other regularly, fans were delighted to hear that Nicholas Lyndhurst is expecting his first child with his wife, Lucy. Many congratulations to Nicholas and Lucy from everyone!When talking about bloomers, we were told how much Nicholas enjoyed playing jokes on set. One day, he placed little bits of paper, which made a loud bang when an object was lifted off then, under several items on the set. He took them all off just before they recorded, except for one, which banged and Nicholas put his hand over his mouth when he realised!
Ken, John and Sue then went to have some lunch. Keith played a message from David Jason. David, who is currently in Edinburgh filming John Sullivan’s Micawber, took time out from recording and recorded a special message for the fans at the Convention. Everyone was thrilled that David had taken time out to record the message.Fans were in for another treat when Keith announced that a copy of the “missing” Gulf War Special, filmed about 9 years ago, had been found! The Society received the video from a secret source and Keith and Perry had to sign several forms to say they would not copy the video to anyone.
Unfortunately, I cannot give you a video clip of the episode for this reason. However, I can give you some still pictures. The sketch was titled “ROBIN FLY’S AT DAWN”. Everyone really enjoyed the special episode and I think everybody’s favourite line was Uncle Albert’s, “It’s not really High Wycombe, it just looks like High Wycombe”.
