It's 50 years since a sparkling new sitcom was first broadcast on UK television. Starring James Bolam and Rodney Bewes, the highly-anticipated BBC1 offering was called Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? and it was set in our part of the world.
We'd first met the young Terry Collier and Bob Ferris back in the swinging sixties in the first outing of the Likely Lads - a standard, period, black and white romp, telling of the humorous scrapes of two working-class pals living 'somewhere up North'. If that series comes across as a little dated and rough around the edges by today's high-production TV standards, its sequel 'Whatever Happened To...' has fared much better with the passing of time.
Filmed in colour, beautifully written by Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, with Bolam (as Terry) and Bewes (as Bob) turning in career-best performances, the 1973 Likely Lads was both funny and occasionally poignant with the pair, older but not necessarily wiser, navigating the sometimes awkward twists and turns of a rapidly changing decade.
