Del Boy legend David Jason has revealed he was the first choice to play Father Ted – but turned it down.
The 80-year-old says he didn’t like the look of the role, grumbling it was “pious”.
“I did turn down the Father Ted role,” he said. “There was something about the character. It was a bit pious. I could not see myself doing it. Not for me, mate.”
David shot to fame playing wide-boy Del in Only Fools And Horses in 1981.
A decade later, he was playing DI Jack Frost on ITV’s A Touch Of Frost, which ran for 18 years. It was during this time he was offered the role of Ted on Channel 4.
Dermot Morgan eventually got the job.
The comedy, which followed a group of misfit priests on fictional Craggy Island, ran from 1995 until 1998 and launched the careers of Ardal O’Hanlon and Graham Norton.
The day after recording the final episode, Dermot suffered a fatal heart attack, aged 45.
Speaking to fans, David also told how the best thing that happened to him was losing the role of Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army in 1967.
At a convention in Bedford run by the Only Fools and Horses Appreciation Society, he explained: “I was offered a part in Dad’s Army. I went to the BBC and read for the director.”
But Clive Dunn, who originally turned down the part, decided he wanted it.
“So at 3pm I got a call from my agent,” David revealed. “He said, ‘You know you have this part in Dad’s Army? Well you haven’t now.’
Life can change in one conversation.
“Also, I’d have been trapped in Dad’s Army so Only Fools, Darling Buds of May, Open All Hours… none of that would’ve happened. Because I lost that job, in a back-handed way, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
There is one thing he wouldn’t say no to, though – the chance to work with Steven Spielberg.
“I would have liked Spielberg to have directed me,” he said. “I loved his first movie, Duel, and followed his work.
“Steven, I am available.”
