Why playing Del Boy is lovely jubbly
North East actor Sam Lupton talks about his role in Only Fools and Horses
Was there ever a TV sitcom character more indelibly Cockney than Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in Only Fools and Horses, apart perhaps from Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part?
It’s a fair question to ask ahead of the Trotters rolling into Newcastle in their yellow three-wheeler for a run of the stage musical version of the show at the Theatre Royal.
Especially when – wait for it – the actor playing Del Boy, head of the wheeler-dealing Trotter clan from Peckham, is originally from a former pit village in County Durham.
Acting is pretending, of course. But even so, you’d imagine Cockney actors would have been first in the queue (or the rhyming slang equivalent) for a part clearly born within the sound of Bow bells.
Teachers’ son Sam Lupton, who grew up in Esh, answers the question by saying he landed it by chance.
“I was auditioning for a different show, the stage version of Fawlty Towers, which is currently doing very good business with the same producers and director.
“It would have meant playing five or six different characters and one of them was a Cockney.
“I’ve always enjoyed doing accents so after the audition my agent got a call saying, ‘Would Sam consider playing Del Boy?’ She’d obviously heard something in my voice.”
Sam didn’t so much consider as jump at the chance. And having jumped, he set about watching every one of the 64 episodes broadcast by the BBC between 1981 and 1991.
“I’m still watching it now. We watch it in the dressing room when we’re getting ready, me and Tom who plays Rodney (Del Boy’s younger brother).”
Tom is Tom Major who, incidentally, is from Norfolk. More reasons perhaps for Cockneys to be gnashing their ‘ampsteads (Hampstead Heath = teeth).
Rehearsals for the touring version of the show, which had already established itself as a West End favourite, began in August last year and Sam and the cast are now on the road.
It’s been going well, he says, although as Del Boy he’s clearly doing something the character never did which is grafting for an honest crust.
“It is quite a physical part,” he says. “I have very little time off stage during the show and he moves at a million miles an hour and talks at a million miles an hour.
“There’s certainly not much time for anything else in my life at the moment.”
Still, he is doing the only thing he ever wanted to do.
Sam remembers that as a former member of the Gala Theatre’s youth company, he couldn’t stay away from the place.
His first ever job at the Durham theatre was as a spotlight operator and he worked there as a technician for six years, even during his holidays from Manchester School of Theatre where he’d gone to learn how to act.
Although part of Manchester Metropolitan University, he found the performing arts course there both demanding and practical with days that would start early and end late.
He was glad of the rigour. “People say you don’t need to go to drama school but I disagree. I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t done the course.”
Actually, he says, he would have done any job in the theatre, just to be part of that world. But he’s loving acting and playing a character so dear to people’s hearts.
“I do feel a responsibility to do justice to the show and to a character that so many people love. Because it was on TV, Del Boy was in people’s living rooms for years. They think they know him.
“But audiences watching the show know I’m not David Jason and I think they accept that. The responses we’ve had so far have been lovely.”
The musical version of Only Fools and Horses was written by Jim Sullivan, whose late father John wrote the original TV show, along with Paul Whitehouse who is playing Grandad at some venues but not the Theatre Royal.
Of the former Fast Show star, more recently Bob Mortimer’s fishing companion, Sam says, as you’d hope he would: “He’s just really nice and kind.
“There’s no ego there at all. Working with him is a joy, either on stage or having a pint in the pub afterwards. He loves the show and is wonderful in it but he’s in such high demand that he couldn’t do the whole tour.
“I know he’s disappointed not to be able to come to the Theatre Royal but Philip Childs, who you’ll recognise from all kinds of things on TV, is also very funny as Grandad.”
Sam’s no stranger to the Theatre Royal, having first performed there aged 13 in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. You might also have seen him in Avenue Q or Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
But he has lots of strings to his bow, having written and directed and made use of his passion for magic.
A member of The Magic Circle, he has not only performed magic but written theatre shows about it, including one that he took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023.
That same year he also created illusions for the touring version of Uncanny: I Know What I Saw, the theatre spin-off from the spooky radio and podcast series hosted by Danny Robins, another North East talent.
What really would be magic, of course, would be full houses at the Theatre Royal where Only Fools and Horses runs from February 10 to 22. Tickets from or the box office on 0191 232 7010 or the Theatre Royal website.