Only Fools and Horses icon Tessa Peake-Jones has begged BBC bosses not to bring the beloved show back as a reboot. In 1981, the first family of Peckham drove into our lives in a yellow three-wheeler van, with a dream that “this time next year we’ll be millionaires”. The BBC sitcom quickly became a national institution and is still entertaining generations more than 45 years after Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter (played by Sir David Jason), younger brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), and Grandad (Lennard Pearce), welcomed us to Nelson Mandela House.

The TV favourite rose to fame as Del Boy’s partner Raquel Turner and confessed that it was no laughing matter, preparing to walk out on stage for a live studio audience. A staggering 24.5 million viewers tuned in to the 2003 Christmas special, Sleepless in Peckham.

Despite being clearly loved by Brits to this day, the 68-year-old actress has pleaded with producers to leave the seven-series show “alone”. In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, ahead of her upcoming role in the comedy drama stage show Invisible Man, Tessa insisted: “It’s best left alone,” she says. “John Sullivan was the genius behind the show.

“I don’t think you could ever repeat that, and I hope they don’t. Some reboots, or when they’ve brought everyone back for a prequel, just haven’t worked.” She says the show is still reaching new audiences thanks to its repeats on multiple television networks.

“We get letters from youngsters all the time saying, ‘Oh, my granddad watched this show’, or ‘My parents watched this, and they loved it’, so it passes down the generations,” she says. “So, I think leave it like that because it’s a bit like a jewel – you don’t want to fiddle about with it.”

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Comedian Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan, son of Only Fools and Horses’ legendary creator John Sullivan, created a West End musical in 2019 to fill the gap for bereft fans. A smash hit with audiences, it toured the UK in 2024-25.

Although Tessa hasn’t watched the stage show version, she is full of praise for the adaptation. It comes ahead of the 45th anniversary two-part special set to air this summer, but she admitted that filming the TV special was harder than expected.

After filming Only Fools and Horses: The Lost Archive for comedy channel U&GOLD, the mum-of-two admitted it felt like “torture” watching the unseen footage back. She explained: “You’re looking back at something 30 years ago, and we’re all a lot older now, so you just look so different,” reflects Tessa.

“It was harder for David because some of that stuff for him is looking back 40 years, which I know he finds quite odd. It was nice spending the day with him because we don’t get to meet up that often, but he said, ‘Isn’t it odd to see yourself looking so much younger?’”

She says the experience was even “quite depressing” and that she would not wish to repeat it. “You think, ‘Oh, we were in our prime!’ which is quite a weird thing to be witnessing decades later. It’s a very odd experience. It was a bit like torture to be forced to sit on the sofa and watch this stuff back from 30 years ago, it really was, but it’s part of the job.”

The two-part special, out later this year, will feature interviews with cast and crew, and includes archive material from more than 10 classic episodes, including Christmas specials The Jolly Boys’ Outing, from 1989 and 1992’s Mother Nature’s Son.

Away from Only Fools and Horses, Tessa is busy preparing to tread the boards for the new stage comedy-drama Invisible Me at London’s Southwark Playhouse, written by Bren Gosling. She plays Lynn, a hotel cleaner and domestic abuse survivor who is about to embrace romance in later life.

Speaking about her upcoming play, which explores romance and relationships later in life, the actress teased that it has allowed her to dip her toes back into dating. She reflected: “This particular play is beautifully written by Bren Gosling, and what’s lovely about the play is the title Invisible Me sums it up really, it’s that thing that when you get to a certain age in your 50s and 60s, people stop noticing you. And that’s for men and women; you’re just not noticed as much.

“So, to look at that age group and then say, How about we try and get them back dating' is fascinating. How do you do that at 60 when you’re not very good on the internet, and you’re not great online? What do people do? So, I think all of that is really fun, and it’s going to be quite an interesting play.”

When asked if it has inspired her to get back out into the dating world again, she confessed: “It hasn’t, but never say never. I think he’s written it all really well. Each of us has got a slightly different way of getting our confidence back sexually. He does it quite slowly because they’ve been on their own for a while, and I think when you’re on your own for a while, you forget how to flirt or how to chat someone up.

“I think it’s probably easier for younger generations who’ve learned about emails and all that stuff from very early on. I mean, I can’t use anything but my forefinger to type anything on my phone, and it takes forever. So, it’s a training that we never had, so when you add that extra layer of how to meet someone, it makes things even harder.”

Tessa Peake-Jones, James Holmes and Kevin N Golding star in the new comedy drama, Invisible Me, at Southwark Playhouse from April 8 - May 2. Tickets are on sale now via their website.