John Sullivan wrote about the south London he had spent fifteen years working in, and Only Fools and Horses is what that knowledge bought: the warmest and funniest thing British television made in the 1980s. Away from Peckham, his footing was never as sure.
Fi1m perspective
Every episode of Only Fools and Horses goes the same way. Del has a scheme, the scheme meets a complication, everybody goes to the pub, where Trigger calls Rodney Dave and Boycie laughs at all of them, and then it is back to the flat, poorer than before. John Sullivan wrote every one of those episodes himself, and he understood that a sitcom is structure first. The joke is in the title: this time next year they will be millionaires, and we know from the opening minute that they will not.
He came to it late. Sullivan left school at fifteen and spent fifteen years in low-paid jobs around south London before joining the BBC props department in 1974, and it shows, in the best way; his people talk the way the people he had worked beside talked. Sketches for The Two Ronnies led to Citizen Smith (1977), his first series, set in the same streets. Then came Only Fools and Horses in 1981, produced and directed at first by Ray Butt, and it started thin. The flat looked like a set, the plots were small, and the audience found it slowly, through repeats. Just Good Friends (1983), a romantic comedy with a woman at its centre, showed he could write something other than two brothers and a van.
What made the Peckham show grow was that Sullivan kept filling the world in. Marlene, Mickey Pearce and his hats, Uncle Albert and his war, and later Raquel and Cassandra, who gave the Trotters something to want that was not money. The later series ran longer and let the sad moments sit next to the gags. He was well served: David Jason's timing, and directors, Butt and then Susan Belbin, Tony Dow, Martin Shardlow and Mandie Fletcher, who held the shot and let the laugh run, with Chris Wadsworth leaving the pauses in. We knew the chandelier was coming, in the second series, and we laughed until it hurt anyway, because Sullivan had spent the whole episode making us wait for it.
Away from Peckham he was less certain. Sitting Pretty (1992–1993) was his first real failure, and it is the one that left his own ground. The comedy-drama Roger Roger (1996–2003) is uneven, and never as satisfying as the half-hours. He went back to the Trotters twice, with The Green Green Grass (2005), which followed Boycie and Marlene, and Rock & Chips (2010), a prequel whose last episode went out shortly after his death in April 2011. Start with the second series of Only Fools and Horses and work outwards; the further you get from that flat, the more you will notice what the flat was giving him.
Biography
John Sullivan was an English television scriptwriter. He created and wrote the sitcom Only Fools and Horses (1981–2003).
From working-class South London, Sullivan worked in a variety of low-paid jobs for 15 years before gaining his first break writing sketches for The Two Ronnies. This led to his debut series Citizen Smith (1977–1980). He subsequently wrote Just Good Friends (1983–1986), Dear John (1986–1987) and other series, including the Only Fools and Horses spin-off The Green Green Grass (2005–2009) and prequel Rock & Chips (2010–2011).
Sullivan won the BAFTA for best sitcom on three occasions and was appointed OBE in 2005 for services to drama.
