Rodney Bewes (27 November 1937[1] – 21 November 2017)[2] was an English television actor and writer best known for playing Bob Ferris in the BBCtelevision sitcom The Likely Lads (1964–66), its colour sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1973–74), the various radio series based on them (1967–68 and 1975), and in the big screen film The Likely Lads (1976).
Life
Bewes was born in Bingley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His family moved to Luton, where he attended Challney Boys' School.[3] Because of his early ill-health (he suffered from asthma and bronchitis), one of the reasons the family moved, his mother tended to keep him off school.[2] When his illness had receded, he auditioned for the title role in Billy Bunter of Greyfriars Schoolwhen he was nearly 13, and was in the last two short-listed for the role, losing to Gerald Campion.[2] However, he did appear in two early television roles for the BBC. At 14, he moved to London to attend RADA's preparatory school.
After two years of national service in the RAF, Bewes attended RADA. At nights he was working in hotels, doing the washing up, to finance his studies at RADA during the day, and hence was frequently to be found asleep in class. He was expelled during his final year.[4] In the early 1960s, he was appearing in productions at the Borough Polytechnic Institute (now London South Bank University) alongside Richard Briers and Brian Murphy. He then began appearing in repertory theatre and obtained parts in the television shows Dixon of Dock Green (1962) and Z-Cars (1963). He also appeared in the film version of Billy Liar (1963) alongside his close friend Tom Courtenay. The two men shared a flat at the time and Bewes, having seen Courtenay's script suceesfully approached the casting director (independent of Courtenay) for a part.[2] The following year his northern working-class background and natural northern accent stood him in good stead, landing him the role of northern working class hero Bob Ferris in The Likely Lads.
In between his two spells as a 'Likely Lad' in the 1960s and 1970s, Bewes also appeared in Man in a Suitcase (1967), Father, Dear Father (1968) and as "Mr Rodney" on The Basil Brush Show (1968–69). Bewes starred in his own ITV sitcom Dear Mother...Love Albert (later known as Albert!, 1969–72), which he created and co-wrote with Derrick Goodwin. He also appeared in the film Spring and Port Wine (1970) which starred James Mason, and played the Knave of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972).
Bewes's later film and television roles includes Jabberwocky (1977), Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979), The Wildcats of St. Trinian's (1980), and the 1984 Doctor Who serial Resurrection of the Daleks. His television career had largely ended by the mid-1980s.
Although he is better known for his comedy and light entertainment roles, viewers were given an opportunity to see Bewes's serious acting ability in a made-for-TV film adaptation of John Ford's 17th century play, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1980). In 1984, he successfully toured art centres in the UK with his one-man stage version of the dystopian sci-fi movie, Rollerball. On the West End stage, Bewes was cast in the play Middle-Age Spread and Funny Money, a farce by Ray Cooney.[2]
During 1982, he served as spokesman for the now defunct trade organisation the British Onion Marketing Board, appearing in a number of print advertisements during the year.[5]
Bewes remained active as a stage performer in the 1990s and later with one-man versions of Three Men in a Boat and Diary of a Nobody, both of which shows he has toured extensively in the UK. At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1997 he won the Stella Artois Prize for his one-man production of Three Men in a Boat. In July 2013, he was The Marshal (Petain) in the Southwark Playhouse production of Peter Ustinov's The Moment of Truth.[6]
Rodney Bewes' autobiography, A Likely Story, was published in September 2005.[3] Bewes revealed in it, and also on Michael Parkinson's BBC Radio 2show in 2005, that his Likely Lads co-star James Bolam had not spoken to him for the last 30 years, after they fell out over a misunderstanding regarding a press interview Bewes had given.[7]
In 2010, Bewes also complained about his former co-star's refusal to allow The Likely Lads to be repeated on terrestrial television (both must give approval), preventing his earning anything from the repeats; "he must be very wealthy; me, I've just got an overdraft and a mortgage".[8]
Television roles
Filmography
- A Prize of Arms (1962) - Pvt. Maynard
- We Joined the Navy (1962) - Recruitment interviewee (uncredited)
- Heavens Above! (1963) - Milkfloat Driver (uncredited)
- Billy Liar (1963) - Arthur Crabtree
- San Ferry Ann (1965) - Lover Boy
- Decline and Fall... of a Birdwatcher (1968) - Arthur Potts
- Spring and Port Wine (1970) - Harold Crompton
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) - Knave of Hearts
- The Three Musketeers (1973) - Spy
- The Likely Lads (1976) - Bob Ferris
- Jabberwocky (1976) - The Other Squire
- Saint Jack (1979) - Smale
- The Spaceman and King Arthur (1979) - Clarence
- The Wildcats of St Trinian's (1980) - Peregrine Butters
References
- ^ "Face of the Day: Rodney Bewes – Herald Scotland". www.heraldscotland.com. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
- ^ a b c d e "Rodney Bewes". The Times. 21 November 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017. (subscription required)
- ^ a b Bewes, Rodney. "A Likely Story, Autobiography". Random House, 2005. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
- ^ "Likely Lad on the road with one-man show". Walesonline.co.uk. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
- ^ "Feature from Wales on Sunday". Highbeam.com. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
- ^ Vale, Paul (1 July 2013). "The Moment of Truth". The Stage. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
- ^ McSmith, Andy (7 November 2007). "Look back in anger: Whatever happened to The Likely Lads?". The Independent. London. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
For years afterwards, it was assumed that Bolam and Bewes were friends off screen as well as on, a pretence they kept up because their public expected it. It was finally blown in 2005, when the ageing Bewes published his memoirs, in which he revealed that they had comprehensively fallen out 31 years earlier and had not spoken since. He blamed Bolam's fear of having his privacy invaded and of being eternally typecast.
The final breach, as Bewes told it, occurred after Bolam's wife, Sue, announced to her husband, while he was driving, that she was pregnant. He almost crashed the car. Bewes repeated this story in a newspaper interview, thinking that it was already public knowledge, then got a frosty reaction when he rang Bolam to forewarn him. "There was this dreadful silence. He put the put the phone down. I called him back, He didn't answer. He hasn't spoken to me since," Bewes claimed. - ^ Owen, Jonathan (14 February 2010). "The Likely Lads Fall Out as Bolam Refuses to Sanction TV Repeats". The Independent. London. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
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