Boycie & Beyond by John Challis: review John Challis has had a varied career in acting - everything from Shakespeare to Captain Hook in Pantomime season - so it's no surprise that the second volume of his autobiography, Boycie & Beyond, is full of tales from his life on stage. This follow-up to Being Boycie takes you right into the heart of the success years of Only Fools And Horses. His character - with TV wife Marlene (Sue Holderness) - was an integral part of the show's appeal and the book is crammed with anecdotes. Scriptwriter John Sullivan features heavily but so do quirky 'backstage' stories about things such as the filming of a Christmas Special in Hull with "scantily-dressed" fans and tequila slammer contests among the crew. Challis also deals candidly with the ups and downs of his own life, including the late break up of his parents' marriage, describing one attempt at reconciliation as "a sort of macabre last waltz." There's also lots about his own topsy-turvy marital history (he's happy now with Carol, his fourth wife) including the time he caught his third wife cheating with an actor co-star. Anecdotes about David Jason (Del Boy) and Nicholas Lyndhurst (Rodney) are occasional rather than the meat of the book but for Only Fools fans, the book is full of nuggets - with Fools-related tales about Anthony Hopkins, Barry Gibb and Ricky Hatton, for example. Challis talks about the show's fans and one amusing story is about how Boycie - despite actually trying to help - managed to ruin a fan's wedding night. The tale about Tom Stoppard and the Bob Dylan tickets is revealing and there is plenty of detail about the Only Fools spin-off called The Green, Green Grass. Being Boycie is a lengthy read but has an engaging tone and a fine, diverse cast of people. There are not many autobiographies in which Freddie Flintoff and Hilda Ogden have walk-on parts. The book, incidentally, is dedicated to the men and women of the RNLI at the Lizard Lifeboat Station. John Challis: Boycie & Beyond (Wigmore Books Ltd, £9.99)