The time Wes Craven directed an Only Fools and Horses Christmas special

“Rodney, you plonker,” cried Delboy.

“It’s not my fault, Del,” protests Rodney.

“Your souls belong to the Dark Lord,” hisses a demonically possessed Uncle Albert.

“Petis pois, Rodney. Well whose fault is it then? You opened the mysterious, sulphur-smelling book made from old bones that we found on our holiday to a mysterious temple in that strange and ancient land and look, now Uncle Albert is an horrible old monster.”

Rodney snickers.

“Yeah, but it’s hard to tell the diff-“

“Rodney!” shouts Del.

“Your souls belong to the dark Lord,” hisses the demonic Uncle Albert and begins lumbering towards the brothers.

“Leg it, Del!”

The two run, but David Jason, playing Delboy, cracks his shin against a coffee table.

“Cut,” shouts director Wes Craven.

“I’ll be honest,” said Nicolas Lyndhurst in a 1995 Wogan interview.

“I was never sure that Wes was the right choice for a Christmas special.”

Impressed by Craven’s breakthrough movie Nightmare on Elm Street, Only Fools and Horses producers approached him to work on their 1985 Christmas special.

“I think that the problem was that To Hull and Back was so successful. You know, ‘Ajax, pal’ Slater’s sombrero and the bit where I try and get a discount on the toll Bridge because my car’s only got three wheels.

“The problem was that it was so successful, they didn’t want to repeat themselves, so they devised this horror Christmas special with a possessed Uncle Albert.

“It was brave, but it just didn’t feel right for Only Fools and Horses.”

Horror legend Craven remembered the incident in a 2002 Wogan interview.

“I loved Only Fools and Horses,” he chuckled.

“Yes, I mean, my main love was surrealistic and kinetic depictions of horror, but you remember that episode when they clean the chandeliers? And Grandad undoes the wrong chandelier? Man, I thought I would burst.

“So, I jumped at the chance to do a Christmas special, I mean, come on, who wouldn’t?”

A story was developed about Uncle Albert being possessed by a demon and Delboy and Rodney accidentally selling the amulet to reverse the curse down the market.

“It was a good story,” remembered Lyndhurst.

“But I think that when it came down to it, it just didn’t fit the Only Fools and Horses world.”

The special was cancelled and replaced with A Royal flush and Craven went on to make A Nightmare on Elm Street II

However, whilst he didn’t ever get to finish his Christmas special of Only Fools and Horses, his admiration for classic British sitcoms remained undimmed.

In fact, several years later he would work with Nicolas Lyndhurst once again on a Christmas special of Goodnight Sweetheart in which PC Reg Bamford dies and is resurrected as a zombie vampire.