Rock & Chips: Five Gold Rings (2010)

Early last year the BBC produced a feature length Only Fools & Horses prequel, Rock & Chips, which was good, although I ended my review noting that there was no need for any more. During Christmas 2010 the BBC snuck out a new instalment of Rock & Chips, following young Del Boy and his mum Joan in 1960 once more, and Wikipedia informs me that a third in the trilogy is due in April this year.

This second episode (just 60 mins, and better for it) I didn't like as much as the last one, because that felt like it finished the story in a good place, with Joan, Reg and Grandad moving in to 'Walter Raleigh House' to begin a new life that would lead to the flat being left to Del and Rodney. This time round, Del Boy gets engaged to a couple of girls at once, hoping to get his end away, while Joan gets her job back at the cinema with the randy manager, and restarts her fling with Freddie the Frog (Nicholas Lyndhurst). Throw in a cameo of sorts from Mel Smith as a policeman, Paula Wilcox as Violent Trotter and Kacey 'Little Mo' Ainsworth and the whole never feels like more than the sum of its parts.

In the first episode the drama involving Joan and her affair with Freddie was really quite sweet. Here it feels more like a lazy plot retread. The best bits come from spotting the Only Fools & Horses references, such as the car dealer wearing a donkey jacket, the shop poster for 'Lovely Jubbly' ice lollies, and Joan's mangling of French - all Del Boy trademarks. I will watch the third episode, to see how things turn out, but like the show that spawned it, I suspect Rock & Chips has gone on a couple of episodes too long.