The Likely Lads film, released in 1976, was the finest sitcom to film transfers that Britain has produced. Unlike Porridge or Bean, it was able to transfer the magic onto the big screen. We take a look at just what made it so good, and how it appeals to men 'of a certain age' even to this day.

A middle-aged man, thoroughly dissatisfied with life, is trapped in the corner of a trendy lady’s boutique as his wife tries on dresses. Everywhere he looks beautiful, unobtainable women are in various states of undress. He can’t stop himself. He tries not to look, but its all too alluring. His frumpy wife approaches, wearing an absolutely appalling, unflattering costume. She begins to babble on about the dress, the wedding they have to attend, it’s affordability. Finally she asks his opinion, “Bob? What do you think Bob? Bob?” He turns and, with a faraway look in his eye, he says with a mixture of sadness and resignation, “I couldn’t give a shit.”

“I couldn’t give a shit.” When I first saw that scene in the film version of ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads’ I thought it was one of the finest representations of male angst I’d ever seen committed to celluloid. As an older and far more troubled man, it resonates even more. There comes a time in every relationship where you reach the ‘I couldn’t give a shit” moment. Where you don’t just feel it, you actually say it out loud. This moment illustrates it so perfectly. When you give up.

I know this is a lot to put on the shoulders of a sit-com to film transfer. You don’t get such profundity from Mutiny On The Buses or the Are You Being Served movie. I think that is what makes it all the more special. You have no expectations from a big screen version of a TV show, even a fine show like The Likely Lads.
Originally a sit-com about two cheeky chappies from oop north and their wacky misadventures. But the seventies sequel to the original show ‘Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads’ had a different tone. Even that title, ‘Whatever Happened to…’ has a sort of miserable, resigned quality.  But the film transcends all that. It really tackles the male condition, especially the middle-aged male condition. And it is so incredibly bleak.

Not just bleak in content. It looks so bleak. Comedies are always bright and shiny and it always seems to be sunny. In The Likely Lads, it’s dank. It’s cold. It’s always raining. The wind howls all the way through it. There is a scene set in Whitley Bay, off-season, that is one of the bleakest five minutes in any endeavour. Bob and Terry, lost, run away to the seaside resort they visited as children. There is nothing there. They try to think desperately for something to do, consider going to Boots the Chemist because girls work there, then realise it’s half day closing.

I mean, it is funny. It’s not just male menopause and drizzle. Bob’s the put-upon dreamer, married to the social-climbing Thelma and carries a food mixer inexplicably. Terry is a roguish ladies man and plain speaking male chauvinist. There are some great lines in it “I’d offer you a beer, but I’ve only got six cans,” is one of my faves. Plus you have Terry being scared of cows, the trouserless pair of them in a car while a middle-aged guest house owner screams “Rapists!” Monica in the lift. The cheeky milkman. The Finnish outdoorsy girlfriend. It’s Clement and La Frenais, they wrote Porridge! There’s loads of great stuff.

But it does have a pervading sadness to it. And frustration. Bob has lost direction. His old life is being (literally) bulldozed, he’s aspirational but he can’t remember what he’s supposed to be aspiring to and he’s in a middle-class rut. Terry’s divorced his German wife, he’s an aging playboy living in his dad’s high-rise and tries to sell washing powder out of a van. It’s 1976. There’s no gadgets, no Top Gear, no internet porn. Just three TV channels, the pub and the evening paper. Bob and Terry were of a generation where you could actually turn into your dad. Overnight. They are both trying to escape it, but find themselves being dragged towards it.

Even though Bob experiences most in the film: his marriage crumbles, he nearly has an affair, he leaves home, his Vauxhall Chevette is mangled, it’s Terry who is most affected. He runs away. Or tries to. While Terry seems more content with his beer and fishing and occasional dalliances with shop girls, he’s the one who cracks and jumps ship, literally, and becomes a deckhand on a boat bound for Bahrain. “You know what it will say on my gravestone?” He says as he explains his decision, “None the bloody wiser.” That is so sad! What an incredibly depressing sentiment to come from your lead character in a comedy film. He doesn’t go of course. Bob gets drunk and trapped on the boat. Terry’s homesick before he leaves home and stays where he is. What’s next? Christ only knows.

I can’t think of another film that deals with this dynamic. The way male relationships change as you move from childhood into manhood; desperately trying to cling to the childhood part. It’s a horrible thing to let go of. To realise this is it, now you have responsibilities. You either have to jettison that spontaneity or feel guilty and pathetic for hanging onto it. I always thought I’d turn into Bob. Settled, mundane, happy. I’m currently more like Terry, which is surprising and slightly depressing. Especially as there are no shop-girls involved.