These two seasoned series followed up on the exploits of the lads five years after they were last seen together. It ran from 1972-1974 but what was different from the original series was that Robert Ferris had moved off the shop floor and worked for his fiancés father as a white-collar executive building houses in the north-east. In addition, he'd moved out of his parent's place and purchased a two up two down in an upscale housing estate with a car to boot.
By contrast Terry Collier came back to his hometown after spending five years in the army, embittered by a failed marriage and resentful at missing out on the swinging 60's and permissive society of his beloved north-east. Therefore, the episodes mostly centered round Terry coming to terms with how his hometown had changed and how everybody else had changed too. He stubbornly clung to his working-class ideas and refused to conform to the early 1970's and took a sneering view towards Bob's newfound status and his engagement to Thelma. Terry was consistently coming in between Thelma and Bob trying to turn the clock back and rekindle days gone by with things like, boy's night out. This was not to say Bob himself didn't miss the old days as it didn't take much effort to lead him astray. It was hilarious at the same time watching him try to get Terry to change his ways, responsibility was not in his vocabulary. This led to some great story lines and some great laughs. The early 1970's was considered the beginning of the golden age of situational comedy and this BBC comedy is still a gem to watch. To pull this off you have to have good story lines, good scripts great dialogue between the characters and good actors to play the part and the creators of this certainly hit the sweet spot with this series. It ran a respectable two seasons was followed up by a great Christmas special at the end of 1974 and a film released in 1976 which was not bad, but it had a melancholy feel to it. There was great on screen chemistry between the two lead characters whether both having a laugh and reminiscing about the old days or else were at each others throats.
I can't finish this without commenting about the rift or the falling out between the two actors in real life. I have no insight or knowledge but my feeling is that James Bolan really didn't care for Rodney Bewes either as an actor or a person. Whether this went back to the earlier series or just boiled up during the run in the 1970's it's difficult to say. But when you work together for the best part of four years which included a BBC radio adaption of the series as well as doing commercials for ITV, that could easily test people's patience and staying power. When the series wrapped up James Bolan's next project was "When the Boat Comes In" a serious drama where the character he played was so far removed from Terry Collier you get the impression that he wanted to get as far away from his association with Rodney Bewes as quickly as possible. Bolan would return to comedy in the late 1970's in "for only when I laugh" where he played a bit of a slacker and followed up in other comedies as well as other serious dramas over his career. There never was a reunion which was a shame, because by the 2000's the die had been cast, it was too long after the 1970's for them to be pressured into another series or even a one-off comedy special, but it would have been a great salute and tribute to the fans of the series.
I would highly recommend this series as walk down memory lane at a time when people could laugh at everything and recommend it for younger people that appreciate good quality comedy at work.
