I was diagnosed with cancer & told I wouldn’t make Christmas, says Only Fools and Horses icon Patrick Murray
ONLY Fools and Horses star Patrick Murray would love to play Mickey Pearce again — but fears a reboot of the sitcom will be wrecked by BBC wokery. The 65-year-old actor, who played trilby-loving wide boy Mickey Pearce, revealed this week he had a tumour removed from his lung. He has now echoed Del Boy […]
ONLY Fools and Horses star Patrick Murray would love to play Mickey Pearce again — but fears a reboot of the sitcom will be wrecked by BBC wokery.
The 65-year-old actor, who played trilby-loving wide boy Mickey Pearce, revealed this week he had a tumour removed from his lung.
He has now echoed Del Boy star Sir David Jason’s wish that the cast of old characters in the legendary sitcom be revived in a new show.
However Patrick believes the BBC would ruin any reboot as it would be terrified of complaints from viewers. And he predicted the word “plonker” — repeatedly used to describe hapless Rodney — would be erased from any scripts.
Speaking exclusively from his home in Kent, Patrick said: “It would be lovely to do another one but I do worry we would be constrained because we can’t take the mickey out of each other.
“Rodney was a plonker, but nowadays people would find calling each other ‘plonkers’ offensive.
“The woke thing has got a bit ridiculous. People with nothing better to do will write in saying they’ve been insulted.”
He even suggested that its most famous scene would never be aired nowadays as it showed Del Boy and Trigger admiring women while out in a wine bar.
Patrick went on: “I don’t think the BBC even like to show the Del Boy falling through the bar scene now, despite it being voted the best sitcom moment ever, as it depicts two men on the pull.
“If ‘Fools and Horses is out of order, we’re in trouble.
“But I would definitely be up for it if everyone else was on board and we are allowed to be funny. As long as they paid me up front!”
Sir David, 81, told The Sun last week that he would love to “revisit” his most famous role, as long as a script to match the standard of the sitcom’s late great writer John Sullivan could be developed. Patrick, who shot to fame playing dim-witted Mickey, remains good pals with David and co-star Nicholas Lyndhurst, who played Rodney.
He was also close to John Challis – wheeler dealer Boycie – who passed away last September, aged 79, following his own battle with cancer. But Patrick admits he never told John he was also suffering from the same illness during the last conversions.
He explains: “I was speaking to him a lot on the phone but I didn’t want to tell him.
“I knew he had serious problems and didn’t want to lay it on him that I had it too.
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“We were exchanging recipes as we both tried different diets to improve our health.
“The last thing he said to me was, ‘I’m eating watermelon’ because they help thin the blood naturally, which he needed to do. Bless him, he was a great man.”
Patrick was given the devastating diagnosis that he had cancer by his GP on August 13 — after becoming concerned over his bloated stomach. Indeed, Patrick says he “felt pregnant” given the extra weight he was carrying.
Despite doctors’ surgeries experiencing long waiting times during the Covid pandemic, he resisted the temptation to hold off a prognosis and patiently waited for an appointment.
After basic urine and stool tests failed to come up with an answer, he was offered an ultrasound – booked in two weeks later – which provided grim reading.
Patrick says: “The very next morning, I got the phone call nobody wants to hear when the doctor says, ‘Are you sitting down?’
“The first primary diagnosis was actually a lot worse than what it was.
“It showed up a lot of red flags that I had a tumour on my liver and three metastatics – which is cancer of the blood.
“I was told it looks like I wouldn’t make Christmas.”
The gloomy outlook resulted in Patrick being fast-tracked for MRI and PET scans, so they could examine the “red flags” picked up on the ultrasound.
He recalls: “I got fantastic news that they weren’t metastatics — they were hemolytics, which are usually harmless.
“But the PET scan did show there was a tumour in my lung so I had that removed in October. They caught it early and right now I’m on chemo to make sure it doesn’t come back. If I left it a couple of months later, I could have been in real trouble. I probably wouldn’t be here now.”
Patrick, who has retired from acting, lives with wife Anong, 40, and seven-year-old daughter Josie.
The South-London born star, who married Anong in Thailand where he lived for a decade in the noughties, admitted he was frightened his only child would grow up without a dad. He then decided to get a pet dog in the aftermath of his cancer diagnosis.
He says: “The first thing I did when I found out I had cancer was buy my daughter a little puppy – a Shih Tzu we named Coco.
“I needed something to divert all the worry away and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It changed the whole atmosphere in the family household.
“In the back of my mind, I felt she needed someone else to cuddle, as well as her mum.”
Patrick’s previous health problems have been well-documented.
He had been a smoker for over 40 years — quitting the day Josie was born – and he is also a recovering alcoholic.
Patrick was then diagnosed with lung disease COPD in 2018.
After returning from Thailand, he worked as a private chauffeur to provide for his family due to acting work drying up.
He is also a regular at Only Fools and Horses conventions across the UK and is still regularly recognised in the street for his role in the sitcom, which ran from 1981 to 2003.
Patrick is hoping his cancer story will encourage other people with similar symptoms to reach out to their GPs and get them checked out. His whole reason for going public with his illness was to endorse a government advert urging people to check out unexplained aches and pains.
He says: “The Covid crisis has scared a lot of people from going to see their GPs.
“It’s true you’re going to have to wait longer on that phone line, but hold onto that phone and speak to your GP and get an examination.
“If you can’t find the reason, ask if you could be referred for an ultrasound, because that could save your life.
“Any symptoms that last more than two weeks could be a form of cancer or one of many serious diseases that need to be sorted.
“Also, ultrasounds are non-invasive, they’re painless, only take five minutes and will know more about your state of health than anything else.
“If there’s something there, you will be fast-tracked and time is of the essence.”
Patrick adds: “It’s important to remember – people are so scared of the word ‘cancer’.
“Twenty years ago it was a death sentence but in most cases now most cancers are very curable.
“We’re on a different level now – as long as it’s diagnosed early.
“If you have that medical check up, you’ll have a much better chance of living a longer healthier life.”
Patrick has chosen to donate his interview fee to MacMillan Cancer Support. For more information visit, macmillan.org.uk.
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NO EGOS BEHIND SUCCESS
Only Fools and Horses was a huge hit because none of the cast tried to outshine each other, according to Patrick Murray.
The actor first appeared in the sitcom in the 1983 episode Healthy Competition, when his character Mickey Pearce went into partnership with best pal Rodney Trotter and famously tried to flog broken lawnmower engines they picked up at an auction.
He says big names such as David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst didn’t have egos and allowed the rest of the supporting cast a chance to shine.
He says: “The show was well cast so well, the director on Only Fools and Horses had the easiest job in the world as everything just flowed naturally.
“There was no competition, no fallouts and nobody tried to hog the limelight.
“We were mates and had a great script to work with thanks to John Sullivan, plus a wonderful audience out there who loved us.”
In recent years, cast members including John Challis and Roger Lloyd Pack, who played Trigger, have passed away, while Buster Merryfield (Uncle Albert) and Ken McDonald (Mike the barman) died before filming the last three Christmas specials from 2001 to 2003.
But Patrick says a comeback could still be on the cards, as Sullivan left several plots open-ended.
He adds: “John Sullivan was really good at leaving ends that needed tying up, and maybe there are a few we might be able to go back and look at.
“Who knows what Mickey is up to? He could finally have set up a lawnmower company with all those dodgy parts!”