James Bolam denies feud with Likely Lads co-star Rodney Bewes
He said he has nothing but happy memories from the show.
The Likely Lads star James Bolam has denied a feud existed with his co-star Rodney Bewes, who died on Tuesday at the age of 79.
Bolam played lovable sponger Terry Collier opposite Bewes’s Bob Ferris in the 1960s BBC sitcom and its 1970s sequel but the pair did not speak for decades afterwards.
This was down to busy schedules rather than any resentment, the actor said.
He told BBC Radio Sussex: “There was no fall-out at all, as far as I was concerned.
“We worked together very happily and very well, enjoyed each other’s company and when we finished, we finished.
“This is what happens in acting. You work with people, you get to know them, you like them, we have a great time and the job finishes and you go off and it all starts again with other people and you can’t keep contact with everybody that you know.
“I think that Rodney wanted to do some more Likely Lads and I never did, I felt that what we had done was to me so perfect and so right that to try and bring it back…
“There was some suggestion that we had other writers come in and I just thought ‘well, I don’t think it will work’ and so I didn’t want to do it, I was busy doing other things.”
Bolam said he had nothing but fond memories of Bewes, adding: “I just remember him with great warmth and with great happiness and the time we had when we actually did the shows, that’s the greatest memory of all.”
He added the death had hit him hard because it follows so soon after the death of Duty Free star Keith Barron last week.
“All one thinks at a time like this is their families and my thoughts are with them and my sympathies and I just wish them well.”
Bewes’s death was confirmed on Tuesday by his agent Michelle Braidman, who described him as a “true one-off”.
Tributes came in from stars including Ant and Dec, who worked with Bewes during a remake of The Likely Lads in the Noughties.
The duo wrote on Twitter: “We are very sad to hear of the passing of Rodney Bewes, a fine comic actor who we had the honour of meeting and working with. He will live on through Bob Ferris and the brilliant Likely Lads. RIP.”
