Top: Brigit Forsyth as Thelma Ferris (née Chambers)
Bottom: Sheila Fearn as Audrey and Anita Carey as Susan
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (BBC TV 1973-74)
I was saddened to hear about the death yesterday of Scottish actress Brigit Forsyth, who played Thelma, Bob's fiancée and - after their marriage in episode 13 - wife, in the hilarious British sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1973-74), written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.
Thelma, a rather prissy librarian who wished to enjoy a respectable, lower middle class life in suburbia, was in some ways intended to be an unsympathetic character and yet, as the series unfolded across 26 episodes, it became clear that she was a warm and loving woman.
And, looking back now, she also strikes me as sexually attractive (or hot as people like to say today); particularly when dressed as Peter Pan in the Christmas special at the end of season two, or wearing her short black nightgown whilst on honeymoon in episode 14.
In fact, as one's desire becomes increasingly tied to nostalgia, it seems to me that the series was full of beautiful actresses playing memorable characters - not just Brigit Forsyth as Thelma, but also Anita Carey as her sister, Susan; and Sheila Fearn, as Terry's sister, Audrey; or Pamela Conway, who played Gloria, the barmaid; Elizabeth Lax, who played Bob's secretary, Wendy; Juliet Aykroyd, who played Anthea, Thelma's assistant at the library ...
Even Sandra Bryant (as Glenys) and Margaret Nolan (as Jackie) appear in one episode entitled 'I'll Never Forget Whatshername' (S1/E5).
Sadly, several of the above are now no longer with us [1]. But, thankfully, we can still watch them on film and remember them in our hearts; a special generation of women, born in the 1940s [2], who lit up my childhood in the 1970s and continue to enchant today.
Why don't women - and, indeed, men - born after 1979 have the same allure?
'Eras produce certain faces', says Mark Fisher [3]. And he got that right.
Unfortunately, the present era seems to produce fresh-faced (or photoshopped) faces lacking in all character: almost ugly in their perfection (just as faces in the past were often beautiful in their imperfection).
Notes
[1] Anita Carey died in July 2023; Elizabeth Lax died in June 1996; and Margaret Nolan died in October 2020. Some readers may recall I published a post expressing my admiration of the latter on 5 Nov 2015: click here.
[2] Elizabeth Lax is the exception to this, born as she was on 8 Feb 1950.
[3] See Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, (Zero Books, 2022), p. 74.
