The screenplay is by the scriptwriters of the television show, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais; and the principal roles of Bob and Terry, as well as those of Bob's wife Thelma and Terry's sister Audrey, are played by the original television cast.
This film was the final screen appearance of Bewes and Bolam together. At the time of the film's release, the two had fallen out over a quarrel involving the press, and never spoke to each other again. Bolam denied there was a rift between the two men when Bewes died in November 2017.
Plot
An opening pre-credits sequence shows the conception of both "Lads" during a Second World Warair raid. After the opening titles, Bob and Terry, both aged about thirty, are seen playing football with some boys on a patch of rough ground.
Later, Bob and Terry visit their favourite pub, the Fat Ox, which is about to be demolished, along with the surrounding out-dated working-class housing where both used to live. The now middle-class Bob feels great sentimentality for this loss, whereas Terry, who is now living in a newly-built high-rise council flat, is more optimistic about the city's redevelopment, pointing out that he now has a "modern kitchen, a lovely view and an inside lavatory". Terry has just received his final divorce decree from his wife in West Germany, and is looking forward to a bright future; whereas Bob has become ambivalent about his married life with Thelma and their social activities together.
Terry soon finds a relationship with Chris, a Finnish woman who works at the local boutique, of whom Bob is openly envious. Thelma sees this as an opportunity to get Terry married and settled down, thus removing the threat to her marriage which she perceives Terry as representing. In her pursuit of this, Thelma insists the four of them go away on a caravanning holiday in Northumberland; but while Thelma and Chris are enjoying the trip, Bob and Terry do not, so early one morning, they hitch up the caravan, with the girls still asleep in it, and set off to drive home. While they are stopped at traffic lights in a small town, Thelma and Chris wake up and get out and Bob drives away before they can get back in, stranding them in front of the congregation heading into the town church. Bob and Terry soon after pick up two young female hitch-hikers, until, while stopped at a filling station, they discover Thelma and Chris are not in the caravan. They abandon the hitch-hikers and frantically retrace their route to rejoin Thelma and Chris.
As a result of the trip, Terry and Chris split up, and Bob and Thelma separate. Bob decides to stay temporarily at Terry's, but Terry is now busy seducing Iris, a colleague of Chris, and Bob unwittingly walks in on their lovemaking, so he leaves. Both Bob and Thelma come to believe the other is having sexual relations elsewhere, and have a furious argument in the back of Terry's employer's van while he is working as an advertising demonstrator of a washing powder. Unbeknownst to them, the van's public address system is still switched on, broadcasting their argument to the neighbourhood. Terry loses his job because of this incident.
Bob and Terry drive to Whitley Bay for a weekend break, and take a room in a bed and breakfast. Bob promptly dates the landlady's daughter, whilst Terry is seduced by the landlady. When the landlady, suspicious of her daughter, enters her bedroom, Bob has to make a quick getaway through the bedroom window. The same then happens to Terry, with the daughter walking in on him in bed with her mother. So both Bob and Terry are trouserless in the garden. But when the landlady goes down to the front door to let Terry back in, it is Bob who enters, without his trousers, causing her to protest loudly and threaten to call the police. The two lads make a hasty—and trouserless—departure in Bob's car. They return to Terry's flat, only to find Thelma and Terry's sister Audrey there, and the absence of their trousers does not help to resolve Bob and Thelma's problems.
Taking Audrey's advice, Terry makes plans to leave the country, and signs on as a deckhand aboard a ship leaving Newcastle docks, and the two lads spend his last night in England drinking on board the ship and commiserating with each other. At the last moment, Terry decides not to go and disembarks; but Bob falls asleep on board, and awakes in a lifeboat to discover the ship has sailed. Terry explains to Thelma that they'll realise Bob is on board by accident and put him off at the first port of call, Bahrain.
The film was greenlit by Nat Cohen of EMI Films. Cohen had enjoyed a deal of success making films of popular British TV series. EMI had an arrangement with Thames Television.[2] It was announced in 1975 as part of a slate of films worth £6 million including adaptations of The Likely Lads and The Sweeney plus Aces High, Spanish Fly and Evil Under the Sun.[3]
Locations
The Beehive pub was used in filming.
The film was made at EMI's Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire and on location on Tyneside, in and around Newcastle and Whitley Bay.[4][5] Locations used include the Spanish City funfair at Whitley Bay, the Beehive public house, the Coast Road (A1058) flats and Tynemouth Pier.
Terry's fictional employer "Extralite" washing powder, was filmed at Greggs Christon Road Dept, Gosforth
Terry's works depot was filmed at the former George Angus site on the Coast Road, Wallsend. It has since been demolished and B&Q now occupy the site.
Terry's flat was at Taunton Close, Willington Square, Wallsend. This was one of three blocks of flats which were locally referred to as the 'fourteen stories' and stood on the south side of the A1058 'Coast Road' opposite the George Angus engineering works. They were demolished in the 1990s.
The church where Thelma and Chris are abandoned - Corbridge, Northumberland. The road layout is the same, but the road is now a one-way system, and the traffic flow is opposite to that in the film.
The caravan site and 'The Beehive' pub - Earsdon, and Whitley Bay Caravan Park near St Mary's Lighthouse. It was known as 'Feathers Caravan Park'
Bob gets some flowers trapped in the bus after Terry does a "voice of above" on him on Market Street in Newcastle upon Tyne (The area is now heavily pedestrianised since the film was made)
Wallsend High Street - where Bob crosses the zebra crossing in front of Terry's van. The Greenwood's store was still there on the corner of Atkinson Terrace until they went into liquidation in 2019.
City Road on the Quayside is where Bob is rescued from the roof of the building.
Borehamwood Library is where Thelma has the brick dropped on her foot. It has since been demolished and replaced with a new building.
The dual carriageway where Bob and Terry pick up the two hitchhikers and later drive over the central reservation to chase the truck giving Thelma a lift is Hertford Road A414 between Hatfield and roundabout with B155.
The "Extralite" washing powder demonstration (Radio Free Ferris) sequence was filmed at the junction of Links Drive and Park Crescent, Borehamwood
The Black Horse pub is the Collingwood pub in Jesmond.
The bed and breakfast, known in the film as Ivanhoe, where they were thrown out of, is on the Links, Whitley Bay. The Briar Dene pub is just visible in the background as they draw up in the car.
The Total petrol station was at the intersection of Harmondsworth Road and Holloway Lane, Hillingdon, London, next to Heathrow Airport. The site is currently owned by Shell.
Release
The film premiered at the ABC 1 cinema in Newcastle on 8 April 1976, attended by the film's writers & cast, except for James Bolam who was performing on stage at the Mayfair Theatre in London at the time in the play Treats.[1]
Critical reception
Like many film adaptations of British television shows of the 1970s, the film was largely poorly received at the time by the critics. Arthur Thirkell of the Daily Mirror was positive in his review, commenting, "Films based on TV series rarely transfer successfully to the big screen. The Likely Lads is an exception." He praised the film's "warmly-amusing situations", "crisp dialogue" and "real-life characters".[6] Madeleline Harmsworth of Sunday Mirror praised it as a "real treat for longtime fans and newcomers", with the "humourous [sic] realism of suburban life in the North-East transfer[ring] happily from TV to film".[7]Coventry Evening Telegraph felt the film only "magnified the failings of these situation comedy ideas".[8] Later, in 2004 it received five stars in the Radio Times film guide,[9] and also received good reviews in What's on TV.
The film is rated M in New Zealand for sexual themes, "Suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over."
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