Before the start of the sixth series of
Only Fools and Horses (1981),
David Jason was annoyed about something and went to see
John Sullivan. Sullivan was writing terrific scripts that were too long and had to be edited down to 30 minutes. Jason felt they were cutting more funny material than most sitcoms manage in a full episode. One edit that had particularly vexed Jason was during the Series 5 episode Tea For Three. After Del Boy returned from a disastrous hang-gliding session, he originally had a speech Jason described as "beautifully constructed, full of suppressed rage" about all of the places Del had visited. Jason considered it a comic masterpiece, but because the episode had overrun, half the speech got cut. Sullivan agreed with Jason that the episodes needed to be longer. Jason and Sullivan approached Gwenlan while he was producing Series 6 with the plan to extend the episodes from 30 to 50 minutes. Gwenlan didn't think that was possible since sitcoms were traditionally meant to be at 30 minutes and couldn't sustain a longer running time. Jason said that would be true of an average writer, but not one of Sullivan's caliber, and yet they keep cutting great material. Gwenlan than okayed the idea.
