To Hull and Back

Infobox Only Fools and Horses
episode_name = To Hull and Back


Series = Christmas Special
writer = John Sullivan
director = Ray Butt
producer = Ray Butt
Duration = 90 minutes
Airdate = 25 December 1985
Audience = 16.9 million
Cast =

To Hull and Back is an episode of the BBC sit-com, "Only Fools and Horses", first screened on 25 December 1985. It was the first feature-length edition of the show, and the fourth Christmas special. The title of the special is derived from the movie "To Hell and Back".

ynopsis

As the Trotters are enjoying another night at the "Nag's Head", Boycie and his business partner Abdul call Del Boy in for a secret meeting, which involves Del visiting The Netherlands to smuggle diamonds for them, for which they are being paid £15,000. Del agrees to do the mission.

The next morning, as they arrive at the market, Rodney believes the diamond smuggling trip is very dangerous and illegal, but Del assures him that everything will be OK. Just then, Denzil shows up in his lorry, and asks Del to leave him (Denzil) alone as requested by his wife Corrine.(This links in with a sub-plot in which Del is seen to "haunt " Denzil.) With all that said, Denzil drives off.

The Trotter brothers quickly run off from the police after trying to flog watches that play 36 different national anthems, but they run into local policeman DCI Roy Slater and his right-hand man Terry Hoskins. At Sid's cafe, Slater tells Del and Rodney that he's already investigating the case, and knows that Boycie and Abdul are involved, only Slater doesn't know who the courier is. Also, Slater mentions that he'll be retiring after this case. As Slater and Hoskins leave, Del phones Boycie and tells him that Slater's onto them. Boycie suggests that they and Abdul meet tonight. Del knows the perfect meeting place...

As Boycie and Abdul wait in the trailer of an unsuspecting Denzil's lorry in a car park, Del and Rodney arrive in their Reliant Regal van. With Rodney standing watch, Del enters the trailer and gets the money from Boycie and Abdul to take with him to Amsterdam. As Boycie and Abdul leave, Slater shows up, and Del quickly hides under a big cover, but unfortunately gets locked in the trailer, and is accidentally transported up to Hull by Denzil. Whilst there, Del decides that, rather than go through the airports being watched by Slater, he and Rodney should sail to Holland in a hired boat instead. "Experienced seaman" Albert arrives to captain the boat, although it later emerges that he spent most of his time with the Royal Navy in the boiler room and thus has no experience of navigation. Despite that (and after receiving directions from an oil rig), they make it to Amsterdam, where they meet a Dutch diamond dealer named Henry Van Kleefe and conclude the transaction without a hitch, despite the fact that Boycie's money is counterfeit.

After getting lost in the North Sea again, the Trotters eventually find their way back to England by following the Norland ferry, which goes from Zeebrugge to Hull.

Upon returning home to Peckham and meeting with Boycie and Abdul at the Nag's Head, the group are apprehended by Slater, who, as it turns out, was in cahoots with Van Kleef from the start. Slater makes a proposal: either they all go to prison, or he leaves with the diamonds and they walk away free; the Trotters and friends reluctantly accept the second option. Del vows to get revenge, but Slater mentions that he's going far away from London when he retires, then leaves. With their mission failed, Del, Rodney, and Albert head off to one place where they should've stayed the whole time: home.

Meanwhile, Hoskins drives Slater straight into a police ambush. It then emerges that Slater's subordinates, even Hoskins, were in turn conspiring against him, and set him up to be caught in possession of the illegal diamonds, and Hoskins was ordered by the commissioner to keep an eye on Slater. Meanwhile, Van Kleefe is also apprehended by the Dutch authorities, after the forged money is immediately noticed when he tries to exchange it at a bank.

Back at Nelson Mandela House, Del and Albert reveal to Rodney that that their adventure wasn't for nothing, because they had switched two of the diamonds for two of Del's cats' eye cufflinks and kept them, while Rodney reveals that it was he, and not Slater, who took the £15,000. Del, unaware that the money Boycie had intended to pay him with was actually real, promptly throws it out of the window, leaving Rodney and Albert open-mouthed, and Del Boy feeling proud of himself.

tory arc

When Denzil drives away at the traffic lights, Del is upset and wonders why Denzil hasn't let him fill his lorry up. Rodney reminds Del of the awful things that he has done to Denzil in the past::*Ruined his wedding reception (Previously mentioned in "Who's a Pretty Boy?").:*Almost broken up his marriage to Corrine (she couldn't appear anymore because Eva Mottley, who played Corrine, died).:*Flooded his kitchen ("Who's a Pretty Boy?" again).:*Stole his £2,000 redundancy money ("As One Door Closes").

Production

*This episode was shot entirely on film and also had no laughter track.
*Many of the outside scenes were shot in Amsterdam.
*It was also the first time that the Trotter flat had an extra wall. As previous episodes were shot in a studio, there was no fourth wall but now there is a wall shown, where the studio audience would watch the episode being filmed, so that this special had a location feel without any studio bombardments showing.

Errors

*When Hoskins is paying for his breakfast in Sid's Cafe, there is a shot of Sid smoking an "almost burnt out" cigarette, but then 1-2 seconds later from a different shot he is smoking a whole cigarette.
*When the Trotters were at the Nag's Head, and Albert was talking to Slater's mother Ruby, she remarked about how her husband Harry never got over Slater joining the police force and "Bloody glad when they put him [Harry] away I [Ruby] was." Yet when Slater returned from his prison sentence in "The Class of '62", he said his father died, and also explained why the prison governor wouldn't give him compassionate parole (the letter his mother wrote).
*As the Trotters return to the flat after coming back from Holland, Rodney shows Del the £15,000 and says that he picked it up when they were running around the table from Slater, but when the Trotters were seen running around the table at the Nag's Head earlier, Rodney quite clearly didn't pick the money up. Then, when the Trotters exited the room after Del told Boycie that he's going home, Rodney did not pick up the money from the table, he just walked out of the room without going near it.

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/christmas/1985.shtml "To Hull and Back" at bbc.co.uk]