Television series
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
The comic sequel nobody expected to have this much heart: Terry comes home from the Army to find Bob turned respectable, engaged, and joining badminton clubs, and the gap between them curdles every pint they share. It's a small, precise sitcom about two mates growing apart, and one of the finest demonstrations that class in Britain isn't just money — it's what pub you drink in.
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Auf Wiedersehen, Pet1983
Same writing team, similar ache: British blokes on a German building site, ribbing each other while quietly falling apart. It nails male friendship under economic strain with the same warmth and sting as Likely Lads.
But The tone darkens considerably in later series, and the harder 1980s setting feels like a different world.
Porridge1974
Clement and La Frenais again, this time trapping two mismatched men in a cell instead of a pub — the same gift for turning small grudges and loyalties into perfect half-hours.
But No Thelma, no class romance — it's a tighter, more claustrophobic show with less room to breathe.
Steptoe and Son1962
The bitterest ancestor of this kind of show: a father and son locked together by poverty and spite, unable to leave and unable to be kind. It's where the genre's teeth come from.
But There's none of Bob and Terry's warmth here — this is comedy as a slow strangulation.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Kes1970
Same working-class England, same decade, same unblinking eye for how class limits a life — but here the sitcom's punchlines are replaced by consequences.
Ken Loach's film about a Barnsley boy and his kestrel was made almost exactly when Terry would've been serving — the same grey industrial Britain, but without a laugh track to soften what it costs.
But It's a devastating, unsentimental drama with a bleak ending; nothing here is played for comfort.
More like this (7)
Only Fools and Horses....1981
Trotters chasing money instead of respectability, but the same engine: two men from the same street pulling in opposite directions, one dreaming bigger than the other can quite forgive.
But Broader, sillier and far more sentimental — it wants you crying with laughter, not wincing at recognition.
Rising Damp1974
A landlord clinging to faded gentility while his tenants move past him — another 70s sitcom mining British class anxiety for laughs, with a similarly sharp ear for cruelty dressed as banter.
But Rigby's meanness can curdle into something less sympathetic than Terry's stubbornness ever does.
The Royle Family1998
No plot, just a family glued to the telly — proof that the small, unglamorous textures of working-class life this show captured could carry a whole series with barely a joke structure in sight.
But Almost nothing happens by design; if you need incident, this will test your patience fast.
Gavin & Stacey2007
A gentler, sunnier cousin: two worlds colliding through friendship and marriage, with the same instinct for finding comedy in accents, aspirations, and who's allowed to feel embarrassed by whom.
But Considerably softer and more romantic — there's little of the bite that makes Bob and Terry sting.
Men Behaving Badly1992no page yet
Two mates, one flat, endless bickering about nothing much — a lighter, laddier descendant with none of the politics but plenty of the same rhythm of friendship as competitive sport.
But Class has vanished entirely; this is really about beer and arrested development, not England.
Boys from the Blackstuff1982
Same generation of writers, same milieu of male friendship tested by economic change — but the comedy has curdled into grief.
A miniseries following Liverpool labourers through mass unemployment — the mateship, banter and pride of the Likely Lads world, ten years on, with the jobs gone and the jokes running out.
But Genuinely bleak television; Yosser's descent is one of the most upsetting things ever broadcast on the BBC.
My Brilliant Friend2018
The exact structural idea underneath Bob and Terry — two people bound by history, split by class mobility — transplanted into literary drama a world away.
Swap Newcastle lads for two Neapolitan girls, sitcom for prestige drama, and you still get the same engine: a lifelong friendship strained past breaking as one moves up and the other stays put.
But It's in Italian with subtitles, spans decades of dense novels, and never once tries to be funny.
