The opening credits of The Return of the Likely Lads
shows James Bolam - playing Terry - waiting at a bus
stop against a backdrop of broken-down housing. The
bus comes into view & is then seen driving past the
semaphoring Terry : the writer of the sketch says that
this was to show that he is working class. Bus fares are

signifiers of control in working class life, they have the
power to move the body from one place to another
(they are found under the couch or in the hung slacks
of worn trousers). When the bus goes past this shows
that the assumed control is false in a way not so for a
car owner - so the scene cuts to Bob's driveway & car.
The road that scene was shot in is now called Bolam
Way, the residents empowered that Terry spoke for
where they are, to make it known. James Bolam earned
more in the ten minutes of that shot than the whole road
earned that week, at work.

Comments

Charles Carver said…
Opening credits of A Taste of Honey, on Oldfield road in Salford, show the the old Trade union offices, now luxury flats, like the Hacienda. I read that Salford is to Manchester like Brooklyn is to New York,and considered the comment profoundly meaningless. Rita Tushingham,and the canals,and a shipping industry, and the fact that people aren't talking all the time. Maybe Christopher Eccleston will direct something. He's got something about him, and not just giving up that Dr Who bollocks
Nah, yiz R boof wrung.


finney, friday night satea mournin after fight at pit 'n oblivion. wharra yiz doon on de rock 'n scracth larhs, d'yiz gitz it?


sound, boss, top class larhd, one letter ahead of itself in the original vernacular dawning at the end of europes final heroic age, and o yea chaps, i sea 'n hmm, yah Homies, suck mm, pretend to give a toss, know, the Working Class aint got none but chav yah, nobody knows anymore what unity, Kingdom, what the...


...in the fiefdom estates at the earliest opportunity, an environment of po-mo like, just aint ever wuz yah, as in, up yrs, owt goes in, Deal wiv crowded stages of boring rivals acting like it's all a tad too real for their make believing persona, pool for bearla filidh hare and hounds, fab ask, in yiz got, within as a boring git mate/s, all the way, four grands and eight greats to let others judge one as, the reality is, whatever s/he makes it for *us* the voice/s yah...


Bowlam was the main guy for me, cooler than terry, Bob was the straight stand up, and their antics evoke in one, much the same collegiate spirit as friday night saturday morning, and good aul batesy, somes and al, he was a looker, brooding like H, his eyes hypnotising julie andrews, mary poppins cardigan itself, would reverse itself inside out, should the force of Bob's true physical effect when not in front of camera, at work, behaving as terry, a character who he never beat, unlike Thaw, another legend, from jack to inspector morse, equally realised, a cultural object of two distinct characters, one distinct artist, actor, god bless, but in bowlam as artist, one has only Terry, and the other stuff, the accomplished stage actor...perhaps that what seperates thaw and bowlam, both northern, but bowlam, stagey, lots of floor work, live, one can tell, being an entertainer (of sorts) for a multi-millionaire clique of hacko-polito-opinion gobs and business persons, who i first met at a gig, on a boat, when i was asked to compose the contents of a suicide note of someone they were in disagreement with.



i got sixty quid, in cash, which is not bad when yiz a strugglin poet, nutted off, welcome to my womb of mental illness, fold within and form some speech, some cipher who'll move through an author's mind, placebo visionaries, star burst "i" effed it up to MY SHOW!!!


Return to open the credit/s
if any - of the likely lag


show, with Bolam, James Bow
lambic a diddle why aye play


Tommy Stearns, blow the lamb
terry's lottery in waiting


exploded at stoop backdrop
collapsed housing, broken

bus scene comes into view
seen driving the past semi


amphoras Tel writer sketch
said shows what is working


classifies, obsessively so
fare/s are the free for all

control signs working live
class of power bodies moved


place/s one place to another
under the foundation conch


hung in the worn slacks, past
shows we sung of control as



a way so false, for what carp
scene so cuts to Bob's owner

way a scene aired drags carpet

is now shot in Bolam Way, the terries resident dis-empowered


that Terry got slotted, spoke
for where we are now, make it


(un)known James, bowl earning
the whole ten minutes in ten


minutes, in the whole estate
earned week in and out, Grand
soh..

love and peace, well done McCabe, welcome to the nemeton of owt going down bhard ways..
Great readingg your blog post

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