ABC to Remake Only Fools and Horses Because Of Course They Are

The rights to classic british sitcom Only Fools and Horses have been bought by the US network ABC who are seeking to reimagine the series as a sexy hospital based comedy about the trials and tribulations of a set of attractive young doctors and nurses trying to balance their love lives with their professional aspirations, it has been announced

The pilot, written by Scrubs writers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley will air later this year and is expected to join the ranks of Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf and ‘Allo ‘Allo as UK comedies successfully adapted for US audiences.

The original series, which propelled David Jason to fame as a happy-go-lucky cockney market trader trying to get rich quick with the help of his Nicholas Lyndhurst is a beloved TV institution, but the writers of the reimagining insist that the spirit of the show will remain intact.

Steven Cragg told us, “Market traders aren’t really a thing in the states, so we needed to transplant the profession into something more relateable, like a doctor who models in her spare time. That way we can keep the spirit of the original, which was all about an underdog trying to make his way out of a working class estate by any means necessary. That social struggle is really vital.”

“It’s all about struggling to get to a better place, and that’s something that applies to working class London traders OR sassy nurses who need to prove that they’re more than just a pretty face with a trust fund and a degree in cardiovascular paediatric brain surgery.”

The central role of Del Boy has been filled amply by ex- Charlie’s Angels star Minka Kelly, who will play Del-ilah, a brilliant surgeon with a dark past. In a nod to the original series she will have grown up in Peckingham where she worked as a chimney sweep and winkle shop owner, before moving to the states and becoming a quick witted surgeon trying to make her way in a man’s world.

Del Boy

The unwieldy title has also been shortened to ‘Only Fools Fall in Love’ since test audiences were confused by the pilot’s utter lack of horses.

A controversial aspect of the reimagining is that the part of Rodney (made famous by sad, seven foot child Nicholas Lyndhurst) will now be a sexy vampire, conflicted by his need to feed on the blood of mortals and his profession as a healer. Played by Taye Diggs, Rodney’s relationship with Delilah will be complicated by the fact that she is secretly half werewolf, from the waist down.

Cragg continued, “Vampires and werewolfs are really big right now, so we knew that that was something fresh we could bring to Fools and Horses. It gives the Rodney character a real pathos that he never had in the original, where he could at times seem like a pretty one dimensional ‘plonker’”

The pilot is set to air a week before a similar adaptation of cult British comedy Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. The new version has improved on the original Darkplace by removing the sometimes jarringly cheap production and editing values, ABC claims.


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