Quotes

I can't think of Only Fools... (Only Fools and Horses (1981)) without smiling - if it can make you smile after 30 years, that's good.

Up until he was about six, Archie didn't know what I did for a living. I used to take him to Woolworths and we'd walk past the DVD section where there'd be pictures of me in Only Fools... or Goodnight Sweetheart (1993). He just thought there was a picture of everybody's daddy there!

[on Rock & Chips (2010)] If it had had the trappings of a sitcom I would probably have stayed away. If it had been filmed in front of a studio audience and if it had been too similar to Only Fools.... But it's all shot on film, with a lot of location work, and it's period stuff. This is a drama with some funny bits, as far as I'm concerned.

[he and David Jason getting nervous before a recording of Only Fools and Horses] Why do we do this to ourselves?

We used to rehearse Fools and Horses in a brown, concrete, soulless tower block that overlooked an industrial estate in North Acton and John Sullivan made it the happiest workplace on the planet.

I've been trying to catch up on Broadchurch (2013) just for David Tennant. I'd watch him in a bus queue.

I don't want to do things by osmosis just because I've seen it on another show.

[on Modern Family (2009)] It's an exquisite, character-led comedy show and I don't understand why we're not doing that sort of thing in Britain.

[in 2013] Of course there are still some nuggets out there on TV but there aren't as many as there used to be. It used to be there'd be something every night of fantastic quality, be it a sitcom, a drama or current affairs. Now it's maybe once a week, which is a shame. The golden age has gone.

TV companies turn down good scripts because they're not prepared to let them develop. A talent show will pick up seven million viewers and they can't afford to nurture something that initially will only have a million. Only Fools would never be made today, nor Dad's Army.