The Likely Lads

Porridge.

Or at the end of whatever happened to the Likely Lads.

They put their arms

around each other, look at the camera and go, that's what happened to the Likely

Lads.

And that is what happened to the Likely Lads.

At the end of Sorry Happening, Ronnie Corbett breaks the fourth wall, doesn't he? And says, sorry.

Yeah.

No export market for a BBC football soap.

And why The Likely Lads survives only in fragments.

Genre hierarchy.

Someone ranked them disposable before the overseas copies even shipped.

... stop now.

Is it? Hey, so the, the next one we call the Deidre Birchwood game, which may ring a bell with you because it's in honor of the Likely Lads-

Yeah

... um, fictional, uh, first crush.

Uh, yeah.

Well, I was, I was busy on Saturday, and I knew I wasn't gonna get back until late, so I did what Dan would describe or Dan described as a Likely Lads.

Uh, but for, uh, any listeners under the age of about 87-

[laughs]

I, I was wondering where you were going with that.

Uh-

I just realized, like the Likely Lads reference, that was another one for people over the age of 80, I think.

[laughing]

And

you've got Rodney Bewes, who was most famous for being in The Likely Lads.

Although, funnily enough, Tom Courtney worked with both The Likely Lads.

James Bolan, who was in Loneliness, The Long Distance Runner.

and then Rodney Bewes and as I say Rodney Bewes he was he was as I say you know what he was in Spring and Port Wine that's a good film he was in almost like a meta kind of sitcom almost like a cross between Hancock and not quite Seinfeld it's called Dear Mother Love Albert and that's got one of the best theme tunes to any TV British TV series because it's like I can't believe a theme song that good is from this TV show And then he's, Rodney Buse plays, funnily enough, does he play? No, what's his name? Is it Albert? And then the other guy is George Innes, who plays Stamp.

And he has a catchphrase, it's all happening, which is, he's like a mixture of Bruce Forsyth and a mix of all these kind of, you know, like... entertainers who were big on say the London Palladium and then were starting to get into TV and he's opening a new supermarket and they've got the pipe band and obviously back then supermarket was people were decrying the end of the corner shop or the individuals the bakers the butchers and the supermarket was well wait a minute I can go in there and get something pre-packed I don't have to go to the butchers and say can I get two chops I can go to the supermarket and just buy two chops in a polystyrene tray this was a kind of revolution

yeah and you can go go and get everything you need and be quicker about it without going and walking 10 miles in all directions to the green

grow to the green grocers and stuff like that but then even then people were yeah that's gonna be the end of the end of the high street in some ways but then yeah she gets her because she gets her photograph taken with danny boone but later on um he knows danny boone's in town so uh and he's got a letter from him he says oh i like your material and then he phones the hotel and then he makes and funnily enough the receptionist plays the the receptionist plays one of the sisters in um the likely lads the first series in the 60s you know so she has a connection to that and that's a fact he um I think you have a connection, Ian Lafreniere, you have a connection later on in this as well.

Mm.

Would you ever go back, do you think? If there, if there was rumblings of getting the Fresh Meat gang back together, like The Likely Lads or This Life, do you think you'd ever go back?

Oh my God, 100, 100%.

Mm.

They were obsessed with content that was created and born out of the Northeast.

So Alvida Zayn-Pett and the Likely Lads.

And they're really proud of the idea and instilled in me this idea that something that was made in our region or starring someone from our region written by someone in our region, was being seen around the world.

And that, I guess, that had an influence on me.