Quoting a line from one of the nation’s greatest sitcoms could cost you going forward.
Fans of Only Fools and Horses have made a habit of repeating famous lines of dialogue from the BBC comedy show the moment they glimpse the lavish chandeliers at the Bath Assembly Rooms – much to the chagrin of conservators tasked with cleaning them.
In a classic 1982 episode of the sitcom, titled “A Touch of Glass”, the Trotters, Del Boy (David Jason), Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and Granded (Lennard Pearce), are hired to clean priceless chandeliers in a country mansion. But when Del Boy and Rodney are braced to clean one, Granded releases the wrong chandelier – and sends it hurtling to the floor.
In what has been described as “a bit of fun”, the National Trust site has attempted to turn the relentless repetition of quotes from the episode into a positive by urging visitors who reference it to make a voluntary donation.
Alana Wright, who works at Bath Assembly Rooms as the building’s experience and visitor manager, told The Guardian: “We hear it all the time so we’ve set up a tap-to-donate point where they can make a payment towards our work.”
“We have suggested that if they are even thinking about the comedy scene, they should donate something to help look after the chandeliers.”
The upkeep of the 10 chandeliers across the Grade I 18th-century building costs £4,000 annually and conservators will soon have to rewire the electrics.
For those worrying, though, a winch system is in place to lower the chandeliers slowly to the ground, meaning an incident caused by the Trotters in Only Fools and Horses will be avoided.
There were 64 episodes of Only Fools and Horses in total. Jason starred in the John Sullivan-created series from its first episode in 1981 through to its final episode – a Christmas special – in 2003.
In 2022, it was revealed in a documentary that Sullivan once edited an episode as he believed it was too cruel. Sullivan disliked the episode “A Royal Flush” so much it’s believed he stopped it from being broadcast for almost 20 years.