The Shazam and BBC Studios Comedy Drama co-production was written by Only Fools and Horses creator John Sullivan, directed by Dewi Humphreys and produced by Gareth Gwenlan.

Joan Trotter (Kellie Bright) is in an unhappy marriage with the lazy Reg (Shaun Dingwall), whose father Ted (Phil Daniels) has just moved in.

Her 15-year-old son Derek (James Buckley), often shortened to Del Boy, and his friends Boycie, Trigger, Jumbo Mills and Denzil (Stephen Lloyd, Lewis Osborne, Lee Long and Ashley Gerlach) are still in school, following an increase in the school-leaving age.

Convicted thief Freddie Robdal (Nicholas Lyndhurst) has just been released from Dartmoor Prison and returned to Peckham with explosives expert Gerald "Jelly" Kelly (Paul Putner).

At the Town Hall, Joan asks Mr Johnson (Colin Prockter) about applying for a flat in the new high-rise estate; she is told she is unlikely to get a tenancy, as preference will be given to those with young children.

Ahead of the party, Freddie gives Reg the use of his car, to return unused decorating materials to Guildford and he takes his father, Reenie and her boyfriend Clayton Cooper (Roger Griffiths) with him.

After telling him that Del will be very rich one day, Joan sees Freddie on a balcony in a tower opposite; she shows him Rodney and nods her head, to his delight.

The proposed prequel, was to be titled Once Upon a Time in Peckham, it would see young versions of Del, Boycie, Denzil and Trigger, and Sullivan said "Joanie will be a key character, and during the film will give birth to Rodney.

James Buckley (The Inbetweeners), would play the teenage Derek, Joan and Reg's son, portrayed by David Jason in Only Fools and Horses.

"[7] On 13 September 2010, while promoting the third series of The Inbetweeners on BBC Radio 5 Live, James Buckley confirmed that Rock & Chips would return for two more specials, one for Christmas 2010, and the other for Easter 2011.

Sullivan said when the production was announced that it would "give us a bit of an insight into why Del and Rodney turned out the way they did" in a period "before The Beatles and Mary Quant made London the coolest place on the planet" when "the staple diet was rock salmon and chips and the flicks offer the only hint of glamour".

We were left with a situation where the only person who really knew what had happened was an unreliable witness, so I decided to return to those misty days of 1960 to meet all those characters we'd only ever heard about ...[10]In an interview in the press pack for the production, Lyndhurst described Freddie Robdal as "a villain – charming, but nasty", and comparing him to Rodney, said that: "They're from two entirely different suitcases as far as I'm concerned.

[5]Overnight figures estimated Rock & Chips was seen by 7.4 million viewers with a 28% audience share, winning the slot against ITV's Wild at Heart and the Dancing on Ice results show.

[17] Sam Wollaston for The Guardian said he was missing the interplay between Rodney and Del Boy from the original, and that the only fun in the drama was "recognising the nods, working out who's who and how it all fits into place.

[19] In The Independent, Tom Sutcliffe said that "the narrative's focus was blurred and the pacing weirdly off – quite a lot of the time you were well ahead of the drama and hanging around for it to catch up with you".

"[22] Writing for The Stage, Harry Venning found the performances "top notch" and praised the script as "first class", saying "the comic moments were of the highest quality and beautifully crafted into the narrative".

[23] Andrew Billen from The Times described Bright's portrayal of Joan as "winsome", said Lyndhurst "produced a detailed performance" and that "Rock & Chips was better than the sequel that preceded it.

On 2 May 2011, the third special "The Frog and the Pussycat", was released as well as a three-disc DVD set titled "Rock & Chips – The Complete Collection", comprising all three of the episodes.