Terrance Aubrey "Boycie" Boyce is a major character in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses, and the main protagonist of its spin-off The Green Green Grass.
He is a sleazy, snobbish and amoral car dealer and the childhood friend of protagonist Delboy Trotter. He shares a rivalry with Delboy, normally rubbing in his success and Del being lower class. He is also married to Marlene Boyce, with the running joke being that she has had numerous relationships with different men in Peckham.
He is portrayed by the late John Challis.
Biography[]
Boycie is a seedy car dealer in Peckham, London and the childhood friend of Delboy, Denzil and Trigger. He has no qualms about selling his clients dodgy vehicles for profit. His criminal behaviour has allowed Boycie to become rich and live a lavish lifestyle. He still hangs out with his friends (mainly at the Nag's Head pub) but enjoys rubbing in his glory. He shares a rivalry with Delboy and they try and outwit each other.
In Boycie's first episode he allows Delboy to look after his lavish car which he has bought for his mistress. Del ends up ruining the vehicle after crashing it when pretending to be a successful businessmen in order to impress women.
Boycie later begins to play cards with Del but always beats him due to cheating. During a game Del begins to put in all his belongings in order to beat Boycie, who is shown to apparently have winning cards. But Del is shown to have the winning deck, having caught onto Boycie's cheating and gotten his own back.
Boycie continues to socialise with Del and the gang. Del later tries to sell Boycie and Marlene a baby for £3000 as the two of them have been unsuccessful for years. The deal falls through when the birth mother wants to keep the baby, although Boycie wasn't keen in the end when finding out the baby was a different skin colour. A couple of years later Boycie and Marlene were finally blessed with their own child, a baby boy named Tyler.
In 1996 the Trotters got one over on Boycie when they finally reached their dream of becoming millionaires after auctioning off an antique watch. Del's younger brother Rodney rubbed it in when he bought a nice car from Boycie as a gift for Del. Despite Boycie's defeat, he still celebrated the Trotters' success down at the pub.
In 2005 Boycie and his family fled Peckham after he had testified against the ruthless crime lords The Driscoll Brothers. Boycie purchased a farm in Shropshire and they settled there, although Marlene and Tyler weren't too thrilled. Boycie decided to reinvent his image as a "gentleman farmer" and his personality mellowed since his Peckham days, although he still proved to be a snarky and snobbish individual. The Driscoll Brothers would track down Boycie to his farm, although didn't kill him and instead got him to repay them by allowing them to bury money on his land for future purposes. The brothers returned in 2009 to retrieve the money when wanted by the law, although it proved to be out of date currency and they couldn't use it to flee abroad.
According to Del's autobiography in 2015, Boycie and the family returned back to Peckham at some point following 2009 as the Driscoll Brothers went missing after their last visit to Shropshire. Del Boy revealed that he and his other friends were relieved that Boycie was safe, having assumed the Driscolls killed him years prior.
Villainous acts[]
- It is revealed that Boycie had spent some time in Borstal prior to the events of the series, which was for perjury, embezzlement and perverting the course of justice. This occurred in his youth.
- During his time as a second hand car dealer, Boycie had no qualms about selling unsafe motors to his clients which could have ended up with them being in an accident. In a later episode he sold a hearse to a funeral parlour, which broke down during the funeral procession.
- Cheated at cards and tried to extort all the Trotters money and possessions.
- Involved in illegal diamond smuggling which could have landed Del Boy in prison for five years. Believing he was about to be caught out, Boycie attempted to frame Del.
- Whilst out of desperation to have a baby for his own, Boycie did plan to illegally purchase a baby from Del Boy. Boycie backed out of the deal when discovering the baby had a different skin colour.
- He had links to the criminal underworld and did dealings with the notorious criminals The Driscoll Brothers. He was involved in distributing pornographic videos for them in the 1980s, and in 2004 was involved in buying dodgy cars from them. This backfired on Boycie as the Brothers used his business to be involved in people smuggling and drugs. This caused Boycie to be in deep trouble with the law, and having to testify against the brothers for his own immunity.
- Boycie illegally used artificial fertiliser to grow his crops at a faster rate, which caused his neighbouring rival to call the authorities. Thankfully for Boycie his helpers at the farm got rid of the fertiliser, keeping Boycie in the clear when the farm inspector arrived to run an investigation.
Trivia[]
- Following the conclusion of The Green Green Grass in 2009, Challis reprised the role of Boycie for short webisodes in 2011, 2015 and 2021.