A Tribute To The Likely Lads

The realisation of the programme as a whole was competent, although somehow half-hearted. The sets were all bona fide sitcom and reassuringly cheap, whilst the sound quality seemed a little patchy. John Thomson's character was purely there to drive the plot, but that could be a criticism levelled at the original version too. Most of all the programme was lacking in pace. With an atmosphere stilted and shorn of any sense of improvisation, this tribute felt more like a script read-through. Ironically if the lads had been less reverential to the source and allowed more of their own ebullience to shine through the whole thing could have been far more successful. Instead everything felt like it was on rails, chugging along to deliver a denouncement that was half-botched anyway (the revelation that the football had been cancelled and figure skating was on the telly instead should have been prefaced by the info-dump that Terry hates the sport).