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Recap / Only Fools And Horses S 2 E 07 A Touch Of Glass

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Is it very valuable, Del?

The chandelier episode. First broadcast on 2 December 1982.

While returning from an auction in Dorset, the Trotters stop to help a woman whose car has broken down. She turns out to be a member of the aristocracy, Lady Ridgemere. They tow her home and are reluctantly invited in by the arrogant Lord Ridgemere.

Whilst there, Del overhears His Lordship haggling with someone on the telephone about the cost of cleaning their two priceless Louis XIV chandeliers. Seeking opportunity, Del tricks him into believing that chandeliers are the Trotters' family business and agrees to carry out the necessary work at a low price.

The Trotters return to the mansion a week later to clean the chandeliers, though the Lord and Lady are on holiday. Grandad goes upstairs to unscrew the holding bolt for one of the chandeliers while Del and Rodney climb up on step ladders with a blanket ready to catch it. However, unbeknown to Del and Rodney (and the audience), Grandad is loosening the bolt for the adjacent chandelier. He knocks the bolt out, and as Del and Rodney are ready to catch their chandelier, the second chandelier plummets to the ground and smashes. After verifying with the butler that they never gave any of their contact details to the Ridgemeres, the Trotters flee.

Tropes:

  • All There in the Manual: It was revealed in the 2016 book The Peckham Archives that Lord and Lady Ridgemere were not actually on holiday, but rather in the west wing drawing room of Ridgemere Hall drinking tea when they heard the noise of the chandelier smashing, meaning Wallace the butler lied to the Trotters.
  • Crooked Contractor: The Trotters offer to clean some chandeliers at a wealthy lord's mansion, and most obviously don't know a thing about how to do so. Cue Falling Chandelier and hasty retreat.
  • Falling Chandelier of Doom: So. Very. Much. The falling chandelier scene is one of the most memorable in the show's long history, and had to be done in one take because the budget dictated that only one prop chandelier could be made. It was based on a real-life incident involving John Sullivan's father, who was part of a group of builders who made the same mistake back in the 1930s.note  The episode was written backwards, starting with the destruction of the chandelier and then working out how the Trotters would come to be hired for a specialist cleaning job in a rural mansion.
  • Oh, Crap!: Rodney displays an epic example of this when the chandelier smashes to the ground. Nicholas Lyndhurst later said that he was threatened with the sack if he ruined the take by laughing, as they only had one chandelier to smash and so had to get it right in the first (and only) take.
  • Toilet Humour: A fairly subtle example for this trope, which only works if you know some Cockney Rhyming Slang note .
    Del: Oi, Grandad! Want a jemmy?
    Grandad: No, I had one before we went out.
  • You Get What You Pay For: Lord and Lady Ridgemere hire the Trotters to clean their priceless Louis XIV chandeliers because they are cheap; it's even implied that they don't intend to pay them at all, which makes the resulting destruction of one chandelier a tad more karmic.

 
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Trotters and chandeliers

Del and Rodney prepare to take down a chandelier to clean it. Unfortunately for Granded, he undid the one behind them.

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