Couple’s soft spot for Likely Lads play

May 19 2008 by Neil McKay, The Journal

GRAHAM and Helen Whalan could have been the original "Bob and Thelma" from the popular 1970s sitcom Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads?

As a young married couple starting out in the world, their first home was a Barratt’s semi, Number 8 Agincourt in Killingworth, North Tyneside.

And that was the house Bob and Thelma – played by Rodney Bewes and Brigit Forsyth – ‘bought’ after they were married in the popular sitcom.

A stage play of the popular TV series written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais is showing for 10 nights at Durham Gala Theatre next month, and when theatre bosses issued an appeal for people with memories of filming in the North East to come forward, Graham and Helen contacted them.

Helen, now 59 and a recently retired nursery teacher, recalled how she had to sit quietly in the kitchen with her then baby son Sam, while filming took place at the front. She said: "I loved the TV series, it really caught the mood of the time.

"The producers of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? had filmed the first series in our house before we bought it. When they approached and asked us if we could use it for the second series we readily agreed.

"They paid us for the privilege, enough to buy our very first colour TV which lasted us for more than 20 years."

The Whalans moved from Killingworth to Durham where they lived for 20 years before moving again, to a converted farmhouse at High Waskerly, on the outskirts of Shotley Bridge, County Durham.

Helen added: "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? has followed us through our married life. Sam, who is now 35, has a copy of the original series on DVD and he loves it. "Looking at our first home is quite nostalgic. Its appearance has changed since then, it is practically unrecognisable now after the new owners built a porch."

The show followed the friendship, resumed after five years apart, of two working-class young men, Bob Ferris (Bewes) and Terry Collier (James Bolam).

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 marriage to Thelma, a prim and proper librarian.

In one memorable episode Bob inadvertently locks Thelma in the bedroom and she had to be rescued by a fireman’s hoist.

Helen recalled: "They needed extras to act as neighbours looking on as Thelma was rescued, and I was one of those extras, which is an additional claim to fame."

Graham, 60, a clinical psychologist, said: "The stage show at The Gala will no doubt bring back memories. We have told Sam how Rodney Bewes used to bounce him on his knee.

"When we got in touch after reading the appeal in The Journal the theatre offered us free tickets to the show, but we had already bought a pair."

Taking up the mantle of the characters for the stage version will be Tyneside’s David Nellist as Bob and Northumbrian Scott Frazer as his best friend and all-round rascal Terry Collier.

:: The play runs from June 11 to 21. Tickets can be obtained from the Box Office on (0191) 332-4041 or www.galadurham.co.uk