The Likely Lads followed the friendship of two working class young men, Terry Collier (James Bolam) and Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes), in North East England (assumed to be Newcastle upon Tyne) in the mid 1960s. After growing up at school and in the Scouts together, Bob and Terry are working in the same factory, Ellison's Electrical, alongside the older, wiser duo of Cloughie and Jack. The show's gritty yet verbose humour derived largely from the tensions between Terry's cynical, everyman, working class personality and Bob's ambition to better himself and progress to the middle class.

Bob and Terry were two average working class lads growing up in the industrial northeast, whose hobbies were beer, football and girls. They were "canny", which is to say street-wise, yet they stumbled into one scrape after another as they struggled to enjoy the Swinging Sixties on their meagre incomes. The recordings are from the 1960s and so vary in quality particularly in the first series.

Many thanks to Robert B for these files.

Series 1
01: Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
02: The Suitor
03: The Rocker
04: Older Women Are More Experienced
05: Baby, It's Cold Outside
06: Outward Bound
07: The Talk Of The Town
08: Anchors Aweigh

Series 2
01: Friends and Neighbours
02: The Other Side Of The Fence
03: Entente Cordiale
04: Double Date
05: Love and Marriage
06: Their Hearts Were Touched By Ursula (a.k.a. Brief Encounter)
07: Chance Of A Lifetime
08: Goodbye To All That
 

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? Since the ending of the original series, in 1966, Bob has left factory life behind for an office job with his future father-in-law's building firm (something which leaves Bob even more desperate to retain favour with Thelma and her family). But what Bob does for a living is not a major factor in the show; more important is the fact that he is now a white-collar worker, and (at Thelma's urging) is joining badminton clubs, attending dinner parties, and — in all sorts of ways — appearing to Terry as aspiring to join the middle class.
Terry thus sees his own army experience and solid working class ethos as giving him moral superiority over Bob. But he finds it hard to adjust to all the changes which have occurred in the five years he's been away. As implied in the lyrics to the programme's theme song, the 1970s series plays on both lads' feelings of nostalgia for the lost days of their innocent and reckless youth.

Series 1
01: Strangers on a Train
02: Home is the Hero
03: Cold Feet
04: Moving On
05: I'll Never Forget Whatshername
06: Birthday Boy
07: No Hiding Place
08: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
09: Storm in a Tea Chest
10: The Old Magic
11: Countdown
12: Boys Night In
13: End of an Era