Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
What happ to cr the L Lads the m behin
It was 1964 and two young men – virtually unknown – were performing in front of a live audience to bring a TV sitcom about two working-class lads from Newcastle to life for the very first time.
The show was the work of two other young men – completely unknown – who had never written a TV series before but were trying to make their big break.
One of them – still working full time in market research –was so nervous he ended up in the BBC sick room and self-medicating on red wine and cigarettes.
But he needn’t have worried. The Likely Lads – James Bolam and Rodney Bewes – were, of course, a runaway success. And creators Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais grabbed the opportunity with both hands to become expert practitioners in TV comedy.
But speaking after the sad death of Rodney this week at the age of 79, Ian tells me the memories of that fraught first recording and of those overwhelming nerves are still vivid.
He chuckles: “I had a panic attack, I was so wound up with excitement, I ended up in the BBC nurse’s medical centre. I don’t know what she gave me. I was thinking, ‘This is so glamorous’, and smoking too many cigarettes.
“It was all so overwhelming, all those people. I was 25 or something, it was unbelievable.
“That’s where the red wine came in, I realised it was better than Xanax any day. I had several. And several more over the next few years.”
Thanks to the genius scripts, and James and Rodney’s irreverent chemistry, The Likely Lads – aspiring Bob Ferris and chippy Terry Collier, who both worked in a factory and spent a lot of time moaning in the pub – was a big hit until its finale in 1966.
Even bigger was sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads in 1973, peaking at 27 million viewers. It saw the characters older, but not a lot wiser, mourning their lost youth.
“The greatest compliment was when someone stopped me and said, ‘What I love about the series is you could meet those two anywhere’,” Ian says. His friend Rodney’s death on Tuesday, after a battle with cancer, has prompted Ian to recall fondly the making of the hit comedy which propelled the actors and writers to fame.
“I have an enormous affection for Jimmy and Rodney and the show because it changed my life,” he says.
He and Dick went on to write a string of hits including Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. And today Ian, born in Monkseaton, Northumberland, speaks to me from Beverly Hills, California. But it so easily could never have happened.
After National Service in the Army then working as a salesman for a tobacco firm,
Ian began composing satirical songs for
Tyne Tees TV. He moved to London, where he worked for a market research firm. The Likely Lads, Ian recalls, started life as an exam project. “It came from a we wrote for a TV director course. It w as an exam piece.” Dick was on the BBC and had only recently met and becom with Ian, now 81, with the pair soon re they made good writing partners.
Comedian Marty Feldman happened the exam piece with the teachers.
“He said, ‘These guys are good writer