Battle of the Lovable Rogues
On Sunday 3 August 2003 UK Gold showed back-to-back episodes of Porridge and Only Fools and Horses in their Battle of... The Lovable Rogues programme.
Del Boy vs Fletcher!
Well I went to the recording of the links presented by Craig Charles. Sadly, the winner was Derek Trotter. However, I am sure Ronnie Barker would have been tickled pink as there is no bigger fan of David Jason.
Attending the recording was an interesting insight into how "live" TV works. It took all afternoon to film perhaps a total of 15 minutes of telly. Craig Charles entertained us with a few quips during the breaks. He was very impressive. It looks so easy when you sit watching the TV but seeing him stand there in front of the camera and all those people I gained a new-found respect for TV presenters. Definitely not a job just anyone can do!
However, I sincerely hope you didn't waste 25p in the telephone vote on that Sunday night. In the afternoon recordings they didn't film two versions as I expected depending on how things went. They had already decided how the voting would be going throughout the evening and at 5:00pm they filmed the announcement that Derek Trotter had won! In other words, every vote cast in Sunday evening was a complete and utter waste.
Perhaps I'm just naive but I must admit I was bitterly disappointed with all of this. Maybe UK Gold didn't record any of the votes but just cynically collected the dosh from all those premium rate phone calls.
All in all an interesting day but I am sad to say it did leave a rather bad taste in my mouth. Shame on you UK Gold!
