The hilarious memoirs of a Likely Lad and one of the most distinctive voices in showbusiness One of the most distinctive voices in showbusiness is here captured on the page for the first time. By turns funny, charming and sad this is the story of a sensitive and sickly lad's northern working-class childhood, of a loving mother who kept him off school because of his asthma, of how he washed up in hotels by night to fund studying at RADA by day and would often be found asleep in class, of laddish behaviour in swinging London, how he climbed Big Ben to hang a pair of knickers on the hand of the clock, his troubled relationship with Likely Lads co-star James Bolam and many celebrity stories, featuring Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Rod Steiger, Jimmy Nail and Mel Smith. This is a life packed with incident.