Every Christmas Special I Watch This Year: Only Fools and Horses: ‘Christmas Crackers’ (1981)

Fools and Horses would become a Christmas juggernaut, with cuddly Inspector Frost, Peter Crouch’s dad and whichever elderly relative they were up at that point being wheeled out every year for some feature length nostalgia exercise, like a warm deep bubble bath for the whole nation to wallow in together after the turkey.

But John Sullivan’s writing originally had working class bite to it. And that’s on display in this episode, which was the final episode of the show’s very first series, back when it was still genuinely daring. Focusing around Del Boy, Rodney and Grandad having a particularly bleak Christmas dinner, this is Christmas teetering on the breadline. There’s frequent mention of government cuts, and bleak sense of melancholy about absent relatives, both deceased and absconded. There’s arguments, wistful glances out of towerblock windows, and Christmas TV being used as an opiate.

Also it’s pretty clear that a lot of this wasn’t originally written as a Christmas special. Halfway through Del Boy and Rodney decide to break up the tedium by by heading out the Monte Carlo Nightclub in New Cross, and trying to pick up a couple of right tasty birds. The rest of the episode has absolutely fuck-all to do with Christmas, and was clearly a half finished script that they just shoehorned the Christmas dinner stuff into the beginning of. It’s a trait I’ve noticed in a lot of Christmas episodes, and it’s not something I approve of. On the other hand, the Monte Carlo Club in New Cross is totally banging, and I would totally hang out there.