Sir David Jason's favourite Only Fools And Horses episode

Sir David Jason has revealed his favourite 'Only Fools And Horses' episode.

The 82-year-old actor - who portrayed Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter in the BBC sitcom - spoke about the "sheer joy" at filming the 1989 special, 'The Jolly Boys' Outing'.

In an extract from his new book 'The Twelve Dels Of Christmas', obtained by The Sun, he said: "It's the sequence where Harry Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talkin' plays as we see the cast on board the coach to Margate, and the day’s high jinks starting to unfold.

"The magic of 'Only Fools' is compressed into this single sequence - the gang of friends that the cast had become, and the sheer fun of it all. And so many of those faces no longer with us, of course.

"Nowadays the glimpse of John Challis reaching across to swipe my hat off is so poignant that I practically have to close my eyes, and the whole thing is a world that’s gone."

Meanwhile, David recently said he thinks TV bosses need to be more patient to find the next 'Only Fools And Horses'.

He told fans at a convention: "It was not greeted well.

"With comedy you have to give it time to breathe, so the audience can learn about the characters.

"We got another series and even given the chance to keep improving. They don't want to do that these days, they just want the audience figures."

Meanwhile, David also noted that the show's creator John Sullivan had to cut hours of jokes from the script before they even started filming the first series.

He said: "I said, 'This is ridiculous. We are cutting and throwing away more funny material than most of the other comedy shows have got in their whole show.'

"It was gold dust and it was so funny but we were just throwing it away.

"We were told that situation comedies had to be 30 minutes... we said, 'But this is Fools And Horses'. So that is the way we got it back to 40 minutes and then we had 50 minutes, then an hour."