|
''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'' is a British sitcom which was broadcast between 9 January 1973 and 9 April 1974 on BBC1. It was the colour sequel to the mid-1960s hit ''The Likely Lads''. It was created and written, as was its predecessor, by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. There were 26 television episodes over two series; and a subsequent 45-minute Christmas special was aired on 24 December 1974. The cast were reunited in 1975 for a BBC radio adaptation of series 1, transmitted on Radio 4 from July to October that year. In 1976, a feature film spin-off was made. Around the time of its release, however, Rodney Bewes and James Bolam fell out over a misunderstanding involving the press and have not spoken since. This long-suspected situation was finally confirmed by Bewes while promoting his autobiography in 2005. Unlike Bewes, Bolam is consistently reluctant to talk about the show, and has vetoed any attempt to revive his character. ==The series== Set in North East England, the show follows the friendship, resumed after five years apart, of two working class young men, Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes) and Terry Collier (James Bolam). The word "likely" in the title referred, in the 1960s series, to those showing promise, but also to those likely to get up to well-meaning mischief; yet, as the 1970s title implies, the mischief days were (or at least, perhaps, should have been) behind them now. Yet in reality life was still seen by both Bob and Terry as something in which the only things that really mattered were beer, football and sexthough not necessarily in that order. As Terry says at one point, in disbelief, "After all, there are some people who don't ''like'' football!" The humour was based on the tension between Terry's firmly working class outlook and Bob's aspirations to join the middle class, through his new white-collar job, suburban home, and impending marriage to prissy librarian Thelma Chambers (Brigit Forsyth). Since the ending of the original series, in 1966, Bob has left factory life behind for an office job, in his future father-in-law's building firm (something which makes Bob even more desperate to curry favour with Thelma and her family). But what Bob does for a living is not a major part of the show; more important is the simple fact that he is now a white-collar worker, and (at Thelma's urging) is joining badminton clubs, attending dinner parties, andin all sorts of waysappearing to Terry as aspiring to join the middle class. Terry sees Bob as a class traitor, and looks upon his own Army experience and solid working class ethos as giving him moral superiority. To a considerable degree, in fact, the comedy is built upon a basis of class warfarea theme which was very familiar to British television audiences in the 1970s, a period of virtually continuous industrial strife in Britain. Terry is being left behind, a relic of the attitudes of the mid-1960s, due to his five-year absence in the Army; whereas Bob, Thelma, and Terry's sister Audreyi.e. all the other main players in the showhave moved on, and are all to various degrees embracing more affluent, middle-class lifestyles. Terry is alone in clinging to his old beer-and-skittles Andy Capp lifestyle, as the others frequently tell him; and the tensions which this causes, between him and Bob, him and Thelma, and him and Audrey, are a main engine driving the comedy. Terry finds it particularly hard to adjust to all the changes which have occurred in the five years he's been away. As implied in the lyrics to the programme's theme song, the 1970s series plays on both lads' feelings of nostalgia for the lost days of their reckless youth. Both of them are depressed by the demolition of so many of the landmarks of their youth, though Bob, who works for a building firm, sometimes sees it as progress. Bob has also bought his own house, on a newly built estatesomething else which sets him apart from his old friend. Reflecting the distinctions now separating the two young men, the opening credits show Terry amongst the older and more industrial buildings of the city, with Bob seen in modern, more attractive surroundings. The conflict between what Bob had become, and what he saw himself as, led him to be impulsively inclined to follow the lead set by the more headstrong Terry (especially after a heavy drinking session), who led them recklessly into one scrape after another. Terry frequently behaved badly, his working class instincts dominating Bob's better judgement. Whatever the plan, they rarely got away with it. Nemesis, in the shape of Thelma (and to a lesser extent, Terry's sister Audrey) was usually waiting just around the corner. Bob usually blamed his drinking, heavy smoking, poor diet and reckless behaviour on Terry: a view Audrey and Thelma only too willingly agreed with. This may have been true in part, but actually Bob needed little persuasion to stay out drinking with Terry or to behave accordingly. Bob does not actually move in to the new house until after his wedding to Thelma - living together is still looked down on, as "not the done thing" (although, in the final episode of series 1, both Bob and Thelma make it clear they have an active sex life). Meanwhile, Bob lives at home; as does Terry, who lives with his mother, father and big sister in a 19th-century terracewhich he claims has far more character than Bob's new house, where "the only thing that tells you apart from your neighbours is the colour of your curtains". For its comic effect, Terry is always big on one-uppmanship, always looking to score over Bob. The fact that both of them still live at home is very important to the humour. The show is firmly based in the tradition of Northern comedy, in that much of the humour arises from the fact that Bob and Terry are living in a strongly matriarchal societytwo men drowning in a sea of women. The battle of the sexes is a strong thread running through the show, a battle which the comedy requires the lads to lose. Bob is henpecked alternately by Thelma and Thelma's mother; and Terry is henpecked by his own mother, by his older sister Audrey, and by the women he dates. All of this necessitates them each living amid their close family. For there are no male influences in either Bob's or Terry's life: neither Bob's father (who is long dead), nor Terry's, ever appear; and on the few occasions we see Thelma's father he is usually being henpecked by either Thelma or her mother. The thirteen episodes of Series 1, aired in 1973, have a loose narrative thread. The early episodes feature Terry's attempts to settle down again in civvy street, following his discharge from the Army; then the emphasis shifts to the preparations for the wedding of Bob and Thelma. The Series 2 episodes, the following year, are mostly self-contained. However, the series begins with a two-part story concerning a romance between Terry and Susan, Thelma's sister, partly continued from an episode in series 1. Then, in mid-season, a storyline develops over four episodes, in which Thelma and Bob separate, beginning in "Affairs and Relations". The show's catchy theme song, "Whatever Happened to You", was written by Mike Hugg (of Manfred Mann) and La Frenais and performed by Hugg's session band, featuring session singer Tony Rivers supplying the lead vocals. A group named Highly Likely subsequently appeared on ''Top of the Pops'' to promote the song, and participated in a short UK tour as a result, but Rivers was not involved in these appearances. The song made the lower reaches of the UK Top 40 in 1973. Mike Hugg also wrote the theme tune to the spin-off 1976 feature film, entitled "Remember When". The complete first and second series of the 1970s show (including the Christmas special) are available in the UK on Region 2 DVD. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|