Whatever Happened To The Likely Lad? Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 2015
Rodney Bewes and James Bolam played Bob Ferris and Terry Collier in the classic television comedy series The Likely Lads and Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads both written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. The actors played a couple of loveable Geordie characters who kept the nation amused with their antics for more than a decade. The shows made Bewes a household name and hold a lot of happy memories and similarities for me growing up in the North of England. I went listen to Bewes talk about the shows and his life experiences as an actor in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015.
Bewes told the story of how he got the part in Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads, thanks to his part in the film Billy Liar where he played alongside his good friend actor Tom Courtenay in the early 1960s. In his own words, Bewes describes his laddish behaviour in swinging London with some of the biggest stars of the day.
I was very sad to read of Bewes’ passing in 2017 and was very pleased to have seen him perform such an interesting show.