Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (TV Series) Strangers on a Train (1973) User Reviews

A chance meeting.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 10 April 2023]

Settled down with Thelma, Bob has moved on and made a success of his life, Terry has just been demobbed after five years in The Army, a chance meeting brings the two old friends back together.

There is definitely a chemistry between Bolam and Bewes, despite the well documented so called falling out that existed between the two.

It's a good start to the series, I've only seen a handful of Likely lads episodes, but I feel like I know the character, and all that's gone on in their past, they did a brilliant job reintroducing the characters and giving them a backstory.

Plenty of laughs, the steward, the misunderstanding about Thelma, the photograph, hopefully this sets the tone for the rest of the series. I loved that scene where Bob was doing his conversation topping bit about travel.

Cracking start, 8/10.

Strangers on a Train

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 13 December 2016]

It has been some years since The Likely Lads ended and Bob and Terry are back in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.

Bob is engaged to Thelma and is moving up int world, a new housing estate and an upwardly mobile middle management job. He is on a business visit to London and takes a side trip to a Soho strip club.

Also in the same club is Terry, demobbed after 5 years in the Army and on making his way up north. He does not see Bob at the strip club but they end up on the same carriage in the train as Bob recounts the tale of his mate joining the army by mistake and it turns out to be Terry.

Terry thinks he has missed out as others have gone up in the world and taken full pleasure from the permissive society.

It is nice to see the duo back together and Dick Clement & Ian Le Frenais have become an experienced writing team, the series also features a strong theme song.

The episode ends with Bob finds himself stranded at Doncaster train station. Terry meanwhile ends up surprising Thelma at Newcastle train station.

The Likely Lads return better than ever

[glenn-aylett · 9/10 · 10 January 2023]

6 years after the highly popular Likely Lads finished and Bob and Terry were back for a sequel that was even better than the original. Bob has moved up in the worlld: good career, car, engaged to Thelma, new house. Terry meanwhile has spent 5 or 6 years in the army( the last of the original series show him joiining up) and has returned to civvy street with a mysterious leg injury and no job. Both men accidentally meet up in a train compartment when the lights go off and after a few minutes realise who each other is.

Strangers On A Train was a great way to reintroduce The Likely Lads as ti shows how Bob and Terry have drifted apart and how society has changed since Terry joined up. While Terry thinks everyone has been having a swinging time while he was away, the only things that have changed in their circle of friends is Bob getting engaged and Cloughy opening a newsagents and BBC 2 starting, although Terry is quick to remind Bob this had opened before he joined the army.

There are some great scenes through the episode such as Terry being chatted up by a gay steward on the train, Terry unexpectedly appearing at the end to Thelma's digust at Newcastle station when Bob misses the train, and Terry tactlessly slagging off Thelma in front of Bob, referring to her as opening a perfume factory on her backside

All in all, a great way to bring back The Likely Lads for the seventies and in later episofes we see how Terry struggles to move with the times and hold down a job, while Bob beomes a fully fledged member of the lower lower middle middle to quote Terry. Fittingly Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads won a Bafta in 1974.

"She thought her backside was a perfume factory!"

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 26 January 2008]

Five years after 'The Likely Lads' ended, Bob and Terry were reunited for this superior sequel. Bob is now engaged to Thelma Chambers, whom he plans marrying in six weeks' time. One evening, they are looking at slides of the Elm Lodge Housing Estate, when Bob accidentally pops in one featuring a drunken Terry Collier. Thelma thinks it an omen of things to come.

Terry is back in England following a lengthy spell in the army. He and Bob visit a Soho strip club but fail to see one another. By another startling coincidence, they share the same railway carriage, but the lights go out. It is only when Bob tells this 'stranger' the hilarious tale of how his best friend came to be in the army that Terry realises who he is with...

The early '70's saw a slew of revived B.B.C. sitcoms - 'Till Death Us Do Part', 'Steptoe & Son', 'Sykes' - and all were better than they had been before. And not only because they were now in colour. 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads' worked because Clement and La Frenais had matured as writers. Ditto the cast. You don't hear Bolam and Bewes going 'eee' or 'by the cringe!' anymore.

Secondly, the passing of time allowed Bob and Terry to change; the former has a well-paid job, is engaged to an attractive woman, and has the Elm Lodge Housing Estate to look forward to, while the latter is bit of a misfit, embittered at having missed out on The Permissive Society ( it did not really exist, but Terry was not to know that ). These changes strengthened the characters, made the show even funnier. Its fair to say that the comedy came out of the characters, rather than the other way round.

The dialogue here is fantastic, as are the performances. Brigit Forsyth made her debut as 'Thelma' ( though the character had been mentioned in the earlier shows ), and was promptly christened 'The Dreaded Thelma' by Observer critic Clive James. Why I do not know. She may be a bit possessive, but she's not remotely fearsome. With Terry Collier hovering around in the background, any sensible woman would worry.

Funniest moment - for me, its the moment when the lights go on in the carriage, and Terry snaps at Bob. "You b-----d!". It does not look funny here, but take it from me, on screen its hilarious!