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Showing posts with the label James Bolam
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.