Only Fools and Horses - Haymarket Theatre

Only Fools and Horses was one to tick off my theatre list. After hearing my parents rave about how good the show was and that they would happily see it again, I had to book myself a ticket to tag along with them again.

My grandparents and parents were big fans of the established 80s show with Derek Trotter the dodgey dealer and his dopey brother, Rodney from Peckham. Growing up I was passively watching the show when it was on the TV and so I had a clear idea of the shows storyline and the characters in it. 

Opening strongly with the famous "Only Fools and Horses" song, which immediately got the audience in a great mood with faces in the audiences smiling from ear to ear and singing along to it, it was great to see. 

The characters were insanely well cast, the likeness in terms of the physicality and the dialect to the small quirks that they were so well known to have gave that extra burst of nostalgia to many of its audience. 

Surprisingly, there were a lot of young audience members with what I was assuming were their grandparents which just went to validate how much of an impact this 80s show has had down the line of generations (we really are all living in the same simulation).

Being this was set in 80s Peckham, there were some great references joking about the future of what 2000s London would be like which was a clever change up to the original show. Going into this, I was wondering how they were going to transfer so many great episodes into a 2 hour sitting but they cleverly managed to get all the highlights into a seamless storyline. 

I really loved the props, making the set feel intimate, pointing out to my parents that nan and grandad had those curtains, that furniture or those tacky decorations seen on set. This combined with the casts audience interaction really made you feel part of the story and I would honestly go see this again, it's one of them shows that once you've seen it, it leaves a mark just by how it makes you feel. 100% recommend if you have not seen it yet, even if you have not seen the original TV show it's still a hilarious and all round feel-good live.