“I have been there for him and his wife but they sort of said… that they’re going through this really, really tough time and a lot of people are wanting interviews and press,” admitted Jason in 2022. “He said ‘Don’t worry if we don’t get in contact with you. We just want to get on with life and grieve quietly on our own’.
“He’s much more, how can I say, self-contained, than he used to be. So, unfortunately, we don’t see each other as much as I’d like to. But that’s how things work out sometimes.”
So the two-part Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive will feature new interviews with surviving cast and crew, with archival material from classic episodes. They will all pay tribute to Sullivan, who died in 2011 and was a man both Jason and Lyndhurst referred to as a “genius”. But Lyndhurst, who lives with his wife in West Wittering, near Chichester, West Sussex, will not be there with them.
“When David and I do conventions, we say ‘Nick is around and he’s OK, but this is a part of his life he’s moved on from’,” explains Dow. “Even if he hadn’t experienced personal tragedy he would have hated all that anyway.”
