When We Met: Boycie

EIGHTEEN months ago, we had the pleasure of meeting John Challis of Only Fools and Horses fame who sadly passed away last week. Today we publish a snapshot of our interview to honour the man who it was such a pleasure to meet.

Whilst most of the UK remember John as the ever-popular Boycie in Only Fools and Horses, we discovered that there is so much more to this colourful character than that.

Our interview ranged from comic to poignant and was littered with spontaneous impersonations and lots of laughs. Those were the days……

John shared with us his career from the beginning, his writing, his special relationship with the late, great John Sullivan and the story behind his wonderful home, Wigmore Abbey where he lived for more than 20 years with his wife Carol.

Your last book was all about your own home, how did that come about?

Well that is a very interesting story. We were living in Richmond in London and at the time, our existence was very comfortable but one summer’s evening we had to stop our conversation because we couldn’t hear each other while Concorde cruised overhead with a shattering roar on its approach to land. It was, we thought, time to go. We were told about Wigmore Abbey by a friend of ours and when we went to see it – it seemed like fate. We first caught sight of it on a dark October day, it was misty and mizzling as we sat in the car. We both felt the hair on the back of our necks stand up; we both shivered from the damp and a frisson of excitement. The moment we saw it was the start of a love affair – a menage a trois whose strength has not waned – between myself, my wife and the menage itself, our beloved Wigmore Abbey. However, there was even more to be discovered as it turns out that my wife has connections that go back hundreds of years as her ancestors also lived there.

It was also the inspiration behind Green Green Grass which was a spin off of only Fools and Horses about Boycie and Marleen. It was a visit to our home by the extraordinary John Sullivan who came to celebrate my 60th birthday and saw me completely out of context. “I have a bit of an idea” he said to me and then two years later he came to see myself and Sue Holderness who plays Marleen and pitched The Green Green Grass. The reason it had taken him so long was because he could not think of a logical reason why Boycie and Marleen would leave London and John was always logical. The solution came to him when he was watching the Driscoll brothers, who are Peckham’s answer to the Krays, and knew he had found his answer: Boycie and Marleen would be on the run from criminals. And so The Green Green Grass was born and ran for four series.

What was your relationship with John Sullivan like?

He was quite extraordinary. I first met him on the set of Citizen Smith when I was cast in a single episode as a policeman. I have played a lot of policemen in my time…….Anyway, I was thinking how can I make this character stand out and remembered a character in my pub who talked a bit like this (immediate Boycie impersonation) John loved it and said to me I am going to remember that and use it again one day. Thank you very much – and the rest as they say is history.

John was a genius and wrote every single episode of Only Fools and Horses on his own and was absolutely brilliant at creating characters. He picked up on individual characteristics that we all had and wove them into each character we were playing which brought them to life in a whole new way. John always said that he couldn’t have done what he did without the actors, but the reality is that he was just incredibly generous because we certainly could not have achieved what we did without his writing.

Have you been to watch the new stage show in London?

Yes, I was invited to the opening night which was a great knees-up. None of the original cast knew that it was happening so it came as a surprise to us all. It felt like more of a tribute to the show and it was great fun to watch someone else playing their interpretation of Boycie.

Do you keep in touch with the rest of the original cast?

Yes, every year we are invited to an annual convention and 18 months or so ago, I made a film with David Jason. I am great friends with Sue Holderness and we were recently named as the longest surviving married couple in TV history, beating Terry and June.

I have a very funny story about that if you would like to hear it?

Of course we would!

Because we are such good friends, when Sue was staying in Herefordshire to film The Green Green Grass, she needed to go to the supermarket, so I said I would take her. A woman came up to us and said: “It is really nice to see that you are married in real life. We explained that we were not, and her response was: “Well you should be!” and walked off.

We are fortunate to have the relationship that we have, we instantly clicked personally and professionally and have such great chemistry which is so important to any partnership, we have even developed our own shorthand.

Only Fools and Horses was a slow burner, the first series was broadcast and then put to one side. It was regarded as OK but nothing really special and it was only a strike by the BBC that meant it was repeated and our viewing figures shot up, second time around.

Thinking about the rest of your career, what stands out?

Well, I just love to perform, it is all about performing, I need to perform.

I have always been fascinated by people, and mimicry is a compulsion to me. I was in all the school plays and becoming an actor seemed like a seamless move for me.

Did you not start out as an Estate Agent?

Ah, yes, because everyone told me I had to get a proper job, but I was never very good at it as I spent all day impersonating people and did absolutely no work at all, so was sacked! I was also sacked from my job as a Stage Manager because all I really wanted to do was act, can you see the pattern here?

Back to your acting career then…..

I toured round schools with a children’s’ theatre company which I loved, performing in a different town every day. My real love is theatre in front of a live audience and I have been lucky enough to try to be a real actor in Tom Stoppard Plays at the National Theatre and on Broadway. My training was in Rep and I played all sorts of characters from Trinculo in the Tempest to Jack the Ripper, I was actually playing Jack the Ripper in the evenings at one point whilst at the same time, rehearsing during the day to be the arc angel Gabriel.

In addition to your theatre work, you have an impressive list of TV credits, tell us about your time on Dr. Who and Coronation Street, another two iconic shows that you have been part of….

Dr. Who came at a cathartic time in my life. I was in a state of disillusionment and had given up on acting to open a garden centre in 1976, which if you recall was the year of a big drought so that did not go so well for me. My agent called me and was trying to convince me that a part had come up that I would be good for and after lots of toing and froing, with me saying, no,no,no; he eventually said it is in Dr. Who – to which my immediate response was where do you want me and when? I was back in the game.

On Coronation Street, I played two roles – a rowdy football supporter and another policeman who was investigating a murder so I had to interview all the key characters in the Rovers which was a lot of fun.

John had visited Basingstoke to switch on the Christmas Lights at The Malls and Centre Manager Sue Harris wanted to pay tribute to him: “Having heard the sad news on 19th September that John Challis had passed away. The Malls Shopping Centre staff would like to remember the last fun Christmas Lights Switch On we had in 2019, when we spent the day with John and his wife, selling his new book during the day and having numerous requests for photos from fans. This led us into the early evening and the festivities, alongside St. Michael’s Hospice and other entertainment. John was a very kind and amiable man, very funny and always happy to go into Boycie mode. “John was the Patron of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, helping to save the lives of these declining animals in the UK, something very dear to my heart too. We send our sympathy to John’s wife, family and friends, it was an honour to have met you.”