Yes, you read the headline correctly.
John Leguizamo has been cast as Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in ABC’s upcoming US pilot of the Great British TV sitcock (like a sitcom but with rhyming slang), Only Fools and Horses.
The ‘80s favourite, which originally starred David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, is to be given an American makeover probably featuring whiter teeth and the dodgy dealing of Twinkies from the back of a rusty Cadillac.
Scrubs writers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley are charged with the unenviable task of translating the Brit-centric whimsy into something the Americans will understand – and find funny. We are struggling to understand how this trans-Atlantic leap can possibly work.
Lose the thigh-slapping geezer humour and its faux fur, medallion-laden characters and what do you have left? Even the title is based on an British idiom that no self-respecting yank would pretend to understand.
The original Trotter wideboy, Jason, is not convinced either: “It might work but you’ve got to change it so much that, in the change, in order to Americanise it, do you lose the whole concept of the piece?”
Only time and the executive-producing talents of Jeff Golenberg will tell.
