Co-stars feud reignites over repeats

Rodney Bewes has branded his Likely Lads co-star James Bolam ‘cruel’ for not allowing the hit Sixties sitcom to be repeated.

The pair – though best mates on screen – have not spoken in almost 35 years.

And now 72-year-old Bewes has reignited their feud by accusing Bolam of condemning fellow actors to poverty by refusing to allow the classic series to air again.

‘Jimmy Bolam's killed it, which is such a pity,’ he told The Independent On Sunday: ‘I'm very poor, so I have to tour one-man shows because Jimmy has buried The Likely Lads.

‘You have to sign a waiver for them to repeat it and he stopped it while he did New Tricks. Well, New Tricks has been on so long, and is so repeated, that he must be very wealthy. Me, I've just got an overdraft and a mortgage.’

‘He should let it be repeated on BBC2 or BBC1; to stop other people earning money is cruel.’

In a recent interview, Bolam, now 74, said of the Likely Lads: ‘It's irksome that people… bang on about it as if it's the only thing I've ever done in my life.

Because one played great friends it doesn't mean that you are great friends.’

The series ran from 1964 to 1966, and spawned a follow-up, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, in 1973 and 1974, and even a film.

Bewes revealed in an autobiography five years ago that the pair fell out shortly after the last episode aired. Bolam was said to be furious after his co-star told a journalist a story he considered private: That Bolam's wife, Sue, told her husband she was pregnant while he was driving, and he almost crashed the car

Bewes’s latest comments to a reporter are unlikely to thaw the relationship between them.

Here is Bewes talking about Bolan in an earlier interview:

Published: 14 Feb 2010