The Likely Lads
| The Likely Lads | |
|---|---|
| Starring |
James Bolam Rodney Bewes Sheila Fearn |
| Country of origin | England |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 20 produced, 12 'lost' |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Dick Clement |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC2 |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Original release | 16 December 1964 – 23 July 1966 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Likely Lads is an English sitcom created and written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, and produced by Dick Clement. Twenty episodes were broadcast by the BBC, in three series, between 16 December 1964 and 23 July 1966. However, only eight of these episodes have survived. The sitcom was set in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England.
This show was followed by a popular sequel series, in colour, entitled Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, broadcast between 9 January 1973 and 24 December 1974. This was followed in 1976 by a spin-off feature film The Likely Lads.
Some episodes of both the original black and white series and the colour sequel were adapted for radio, with the original television cast.
The original show followed the friendship of two young working class men, Terry Collier (James Bolam) and Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes), in Newcastle upon Tyne in the mid 1960s. Bob and Terry are assumed to be in their early 20s (when their ages are revealed in the later film, this puts both characters at around 20 when the series started).
After growing up at school and in the Scouts together, Bob and Terry are working in the same factory, Ellison's Electrical, alongside the older, wiser duo of Cloughie and Jack. The show's gritty yet verbose humour derived largely from the tensions between Terry's cynical, everyman, working class personality and Bob's ambition to better himself and move to the middle class.
Bob and Terry were two average working class lads growing up in the industrial North East, whose hobbies were beer, football and girls. They were canny, which is to say street-wise, yet they stumbled into one scrape after another as they struggled to enjoy the Swinging Sixties on their meagre incomes.
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