John Sullivan's one-off drama sees the return to TV of his most famous creations, the Trotters of Only Fools and Horses (which still holds the British record for biggest sitcom audience, over 24 million for the 1996 Christmas episode Time on Our Hands). Set in 1960, this focuses on the family's early years in Peckham, with Shaun Dingwall as bone-idle Trotter paterfamilias Reg, Kelly Bright as his wife Joan and James Buckley as a youthful Del Boy. Nicholas Lyndhurst (who played Rodney in the original Only Fools), though, is the undoubted centre of attention in the role of Freddie "The Frog" Robdal, a charming geezer-about-town whose roving eye has settled on the lovely Mrs T...

James Buckley hints at 'Inbetweeners' end

James Buckley has hinted that The Inbetweeners may end after its upcoming third series.

Sir David Jason on the set of Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Chips

Sir David Jason stopped by to give some tips to the young Del, James Buckley.

I love comedy. You muck around for a few hours...

HE'S the man who will do for winkle-pickers and leather jackets what David Jason did for camel-haired coats and cocktail umbrellas.

Up-and-coming actor James Buckley has scooped a dream role playing a young Derek "Del Boy" Trotter.

Many will be just as keen to see how the 22-year-old fares as the London wheeler dealer originally played by David Jason.

But James is no stranger to playing a cheeky chappy. He said: "I've always watched comedy, and being a comedic actor is what I'm quite good at. It's simply a lot of fun.

"I've previously done heavier parts where you really have to get into character.

"But I prefer a job where you can turn up and work with a group of people you really get along with, muck around for a couple of hours, film it and go home."

James Buckley looks cushty as the teenage Derek Trotter in new BBC show Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Chips, a prequel to comedy classic Only Fools And Horses.

The Inbetweeners star pulled on a leather jacket and winkle-pickers yesterday and braved the rain in London for the first day of filming.

Del Boy's tarty mum Joan, played by Kellie Bright, and work-shy dad Reg (Shaun Dingwall) were also on yesterday's shoot.

Inbetweeners' James Buckley to play teenage Del Boy

The cast for the workingly-titled Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Chips has been announced - and it's a very exciting mix.

Oh dear. It was already a very male show, but this week Dean Craig's campus comedy - a non-swearing, teenage Curb Your Enthusiasm mixed with The Inbetweeners - fumbles about in Porkies territory when Danny needs a subject for his Female Beauty photography project and lets Shane give him a few unethical tips. Still, it enables their misanthropic housemate Fred (James Buckley) to cruise past the clueless pair once more, and throws in an appealing romance to leaven the testosterone-fuelled horseplay. Next week's episode gets things back on track.

Off the Hook (BBC3) was always going to suffer in comparison with The Inbetweeners. It's hard not to see it as a sedate university-days version of the boisterous schooldays sitcom, not least because the two shows share an actor in basin-faced James Buckley. Indeed, the former distinguishes itself from the latter by being nowhere near as good. In place of the exuberant puerility of The Inbetweeners, Off the Hook offers stock characters, lame gags and a very tame take on freshman year. It's odd that the show about the older kids is the more bowdlerised and less well observed, but when you hear it's been scaled up from a series of five-minute internet shorts, it sort of makes sense.

Off The Hook Episode 1 Review

Comparisons to The Inbetweeners are unavoidable, not helped by Off The Hook's decision to cast someone from that show in a prominent role (James Buckley); and, while I'll argue that this comedy's university setting is more alluring than Inbetweener's dull Sixth Form, it's tamer and less funny...

See The Inbetweeners? BBC3 certainly did. James Buckley, who was the brilliantly vile Jay in that series, plays one of a group of students in their first year at university, and he is far from the only debt this new sitcom owes to that programme. Off The Hook was initially some sort of online youth web TV thing, which obviously sounds ghastly, but the BBC are naturally jolly pleased with themselves for this sort of inclusive, participatory, cross-platform bullsh1t. Whatever. Surely the only two questions you need for a sitcom are "Is it well-written?" and "Is it well-acted?" The answers are "Not really" and "Quite well", but tvBite will give it a go out of love for the Bus W@nker.