BBC recovers missing episodes of The Likely Lads and other comedy series decades on from their last ever episodes
FIVE ‘missing’ BBC comedy episodes from the mid-1960s have been partially recovered – including an edition of The Likely Lads.
According to British Comedy Guide, the respective original video tapes had been wiped.
Traces of the episodes remain because of audio recordings made and donated by a viewer, Mike Dodsworth.
None of the five have been heard – or seen – since the time of their original broadcasts.
As a result, they have been missing from the BBC‘s archives.
According to British Comedy Guide, The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society made the five discoveries.
They found the audio tapes among a collection of reel-to-reel recordings.
All five episodes were scripted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who co-created and co-wrote The Likely Lads.
One of the audio recordings is from the show’s third episode of series two, originally aired on viewers’ screens in June 1965.
“Entitled The Talk of the Town”, the premise saw Bob (Rodney Bewes) wake up confused one morning after a large party.
Although all townspeople are congratulating him, Bob is clueless as to why.
Meanwhile, the show itself starred James Bolam and Bewes as two young working class men living in the North East of England.
Its popularity spawned a sequel series, entitled Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, as well as a film.
The rest of the collection comprises the first four episodes of Further Adventures of Lucky Jim, adapted from Sir Kingsley Amis’ 1954 novel.
Keith Barron starred as the title character for the show’s seven episodes in 1967.
However, only one of the seven produced episodes survived.
Almost two decades later, Clement and La Frenais adapted the material once again.
This time, however, it was under the slightly different title, The Further Adventures of Lucky Jim.
Scottish actor Enn Reitel starred as the eponymous character for these seven episodes, which all survive in the BBC‘s archive.