The Likely Lads is a British 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 ten of these episodes have survived.[1]
This show was followed by a 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 BBC radio with the original television cast.
Premise
The original show followed the friendship of two young working class men, Terry Collier (James Bolam) and Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes), 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 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 are two average working class lads growing up (despite Bob’s very West-Riding accent) in the industrial North East, whose hobbies are beer, football and girls. They are street-wise, yet they stumble into one scrape after another as they struggle to enjoy the Swinging Sixties on their meagre incomes.
At the end of the third and final series in 1966, a depressed and bored Bob attempts to join the Army but is rejected because of his flat feet. Terry, who decides at the last minute to enlist to keep Bob company, is accepted and shipped away for three years.
It was gradually revealed that Terry and Bob's full names are Terence Daniel Collier and Robert Andrew Scarborough Ferris (Scarborough not revealed until the 1970s colour series). According to the later feature film, made in 1976, both Lads were conceived during the same wartime air raid and were thus born in the same year, 1944.
Although in the colour sequel much is made of Thelma, who is said to have been Bob's childhood sweetheart, she had appeared only once in the original show, in which Bob has no steady girlfriend and is forever seeking one, though Thelma is mentioned in some episodes in series three, including "Rocker" and "Goodbye to All That".
The word "likely" in the show's title is ambiguous. In some dialects in Northern England it means "likeable" but it may be derived from the phrase the man most likely to (i.e. likely to succeed, having potential), a boxing expression in common use on Tyneside, hence, in Geordie slang, "a likely lad". Another possible meaning is the ambiguous Northern usage of "likely" to mean a small-time troublemaker.
Only eleven episodes survive (as film telerecordings) in the BBC's archives, as a result of its wiping policy of the time. However, the BBC Archive Treasure Hunt, a public campaign, continues to search for missing episodes. Of the ten remaining lost episodes, only 'The Razor's Edge' was not recorded as part of the radio adaptation series.
Series 1 (1964–65)
Title
Airdate
Description
Notes
Entente Cordiale
16 December 1964
The lads return home from their first foreign holiday, pursued by a girl they met in Spain.
Additionally, an eight-minute episode of The Likely Lads was broadcast on 25 December 1964, as part of a 90-minute Christmas Day special on BBC 1 called Christmas Night with the Stars 7:15 p.m. to 8:45 p.m., in which Bob and Terry have an argument over Bob's encyclopaedic knowledge of "Rupert Bear" Annuals ("It was Edward Trunk!"). This recording still exists in the BBC Broadcast Archive. An edited version, which included 'The Likely Lads' sketch, was screened on BBC2 over Christmas 1991.
Radio adaptations
Sixteen of the television scripts were adapted for radio by James Bolam, and broadcast in two series during 1967 and 1968.[2]
Produced by John Browell, the radio adaptations were recorded at the Paris Studios in Lower Regent Street, London using the original television cast (although some minor parts had to be recast for some episodes, where the original actor was unavailable).
Series 1
Title
Airdate
Cast
Notes
1. Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
6 August 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Mrs Collier – Olive Milbourne
Vicar, Uncle Walter – John Cazabon
Auntie Peggy – Betty Hardy
Cyril – Le Roy Lingwood
Elaine – Carol Marsh
Beryl – Rosalind Shanks
Series 1 was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme
2. The Suitor
13 August 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Mrs Collier – Olive Milbourne
Mario – George Layton
3. Rocker
20 August 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Motor Salesman – Reginald Jessup
Nurse – Cheryl Molineaux
Carol – Rosalind Shanks
4. Older Women Are More Experienced
27 August 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Mrs Winsor – Rhoda Lewis
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Bartlett Mullins
Sheila, Elsie – Madeleine Mills
5. Baby, It's Cold Outside
3 September 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Jack – Donald McKillop
Margaret – Dorothy White
Jane, Baby – Shirley Jaffe
Rose – Kate Story
June – Janet Kelly
6. Outward Bound
10 September 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
The Scoutmaster – Peter Hawkins
The Postmistress – Kathleen Helme
Jack – Donald McKillop
Valerie – Janet Kelly
Susan – Kate Story
Cafe Proprietor, Lorry Driver – David Brierly
7. The Talk of the Town
17 September 1967
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – John Henderson
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Mrs Ferris – Kathleen Helme
Elsie – Madeleine Mills
Thelma – Susan Jameson
Big Duggie – Michael Kilgarriff
Blakey – Douglas Hankin
The part of Cloughy was recast this week, as Bartlett Mullins was not available.
The part of Thelma was also recast, with Susan Jameson playing the role on this occasion. She had previously appeared in the television series as a different character, in the episode "Double Date".
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Granddad – Bert Palmer
Mrs Perrin – Noel Dyson
Mr Perrin – Glenn Melvyn
Lorna Perrin – Angela Lovell
Series 2 was broadcast on BBC Radio 2
2. The Other Side of the Fence
26 May 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Bartlett Mullins
Blakey, Roger – Richard Moore
Nesbit – Michael Sheard
Holgate – Eric Dodson
Judith – Anneke Wills
Sally Anne – Didi Sullivan
3. Entente Cordiale
2 June 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Mrs Collier – Olive Milbourne
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Erik Chitty
Louise, Waitress – Anna Gilchrist
Colette – Bettina Le Beau
The part of Cloughy was recast this week, as Bartlett Mullins was not available
4. Double Date
9 June 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Deirdre – Dilys Watling
Pat – Susan Jameson
5. Love and Marriage
16 June 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Bartlett Mullins
Duggie – Derek Newark
Helen – Helen Fraser
Archie – Roger Avon
Podge – Geoffrey Hughes
Mrs Foster – Doris Rogers
6. Their Hearts Were Touched by Ursula
23 June 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Ursula – Isobel Black
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Bartlett Mullins
All other female parts – Jennifer Croxton
All other male parts – Peter Hawkins
An adaptation of the television episode Brief Encounter
7. Chance of a Lifetime
30 June 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Sgt Jeffcock – Garfield Morgan
Ralph – Barry Linehan
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Bartlett Mullins
Cecile – Veronica Lang
Blakey – George Layton
8. Goodbye to all That
7 July 1968
Bob – Rodney Bewes
Terry – James Bolam
Audrey – Sheila Fearn
Jack – Donald McKillop
Cloughy – Bartlett Mullins
Mrs Collier – Olive Milbourne
Mr Collier – Alex McDonald
George – Barry Stanton
Army Sergeant – Tony Caunter
Mrs Ferris – Irene Richmond
Youth – Andrew Robertson
Recruit – Hugh Walters
DVD and Blu-ray releases
Only seven of the eight (then) extant episodes were included on the original UK DVD release issued in February 2006, in spite of the cover stating that it contained all the surviving episodes. The absent eighth episode, The Other Side of the Fence, was subsequently included on the Likely Lads and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? combined box set in October 2006, presented as an 'extra' rather than in chronological order.
A Star Is Born and Far Away Places, two previously missing episodes from the second series recovered in 2018, were included as extras on the 2019 Network DVD and Blu-ray release of the 1976 feature film.
In 2024, BBC Studios released The Likely Lads Complete Collection DVD for the show's 60th anniversary, presenting all ten surviving episodes of the original 60s series alongside either off-air or radio versions of the remaining ten lost episodes for the very first time.
