'News At Ten' legend Sir Trevor McDonald's favourite ever TV show is 'Only Fools and Horses'.
Sir Trevor McDonald
The 82-year-old journalist got hooked on the misadventures of Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter and his younger brother Rodney - played by Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst - in the 1980s and admits their hilarious escapades have helped him forget the "horrors" of the world which he would report on for ITN.
He said: "Life is pretty disorganised, tough, unpredictable with many harrowing bits and I think the art of trying to find something that lightens the air, which makes you laugh and takes you out of the world in which you live with all its horrors and discourtesies and all the problems. I’ve always loved just sitting and taken all out of that.
“Having spent a long time doing the news, covering disasters, it’s always nice to sit back and laugh watching people who can make you laugh and things that can make you laugh. It’s the finest part of the day when you can sit down, after the news, and find something to laugh at.
“I love 'Only Fools and Horses', my kids tease me endlessly about it because I find that show wonderfully funny."
Trevor still watches 'Only Fools and Horses' - which celebrates its 40th anniversary in September - almost every day and even though he has seen the episodes many, many times he still is in awe of late writer John Sullivan's plots and jokes.
Speaking on 'Clive Anderson's My Seven Wonders' podcast, he said: "The plots in some of them are just so ludicrously, wonderfully funny that I just live on them and dine out on them.
“I marvel at John Sullivan on 'Only Fools and Horses', at times they were rather complex plots, really.
"They could justify a play on the stage but it was done for laughs, people were funny and they were silly and they had grandiose ideas about the simplest things, I’ve loved them all.
“They’re still on and I spend a lot of time watching them still!”
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