James Bolam - Career

Career

After attending Bede Grammar School, Sunderland, Bolam attended Bemrose School in Derby. He was formally trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and first appeared on screens in the early 1960s, initially in popular TV shows such as Z-Cars and the gritty northern films A Kind of Loving and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. He appeared along with John Thaw in the 1967 Granada TV serial, Inheritance.

The Likely Lads made Bolam a star during its 1964 to 1966 run. Bolam himself adapted the shows for BBC radio soon afterwards, and appeared in films such as Half a Sixpence, Otley, and O Lucky Man! before the "Lads" returned in 1973. Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? ran for two series, in 1973 and 1974 and a 45-minute Christmas special broadcast on Christmas Eve in the later year.

In 1975 Bolam appeared alongside the original cast in a further BBC Radio series adapted from the 1973 TV series and in 1976 there was a further reunion in a feature film spin-off from the series, simply entitled The Likely Lads. Bolam's co-star Rodney Bewes revealed in 2005 that the two actors had not spoken since the film had been made, a period of over thirty years. The rift, according to Bewes, developed through his telling a journalist that when Bolam's wife had revealed that she was pregnant, Bolam was so startled that the car he was driving swerved alarmingly.

Bolam has never commented on what caused the rift, but he is known for being guarded about his private life. He once commented: "I'm having a man fix the track rods on my car. I don't want to know anything about him. Why should he want to know anything about me?"

In 1976, Bolam made a return to straight drama as Jack Ford in the BBC Television series When the Boat Comes In, which ran until 1981. Since then he has gone on to become one of the highest-paid stars on British TV, mostly in comedies, appearing in shows such as Only When I Laugh (as Roy Figgis), The Beiderbecke Affair (as Trevor Chaplin), The Beiderbecke Tapes, Andy Capp (in the title role), The Beiderbecke Connection, Second Thoughts (as Bill MacGregor), Midsomer Murders, Pay and Display, Dalziel and Pascoe, Close and True, Born and Bred (as Dr. Arthur Gilder), and New Tricks (as Jack Halford).

In 1978 he played Willie Garvin in a BBC World Service radio adaptation of the Modesty Blaise book Last Day in Limbo. In 1982 he provided the voice for The Tod in the animated film version of The Plague Dogs, and in the year 2000, he played Sir Archibald Flint in the Doctor Who audio play The Spectre of Lanyon Moor.

In 2002 he played the serial killer Harold Shipman, in Shipman, the ITV adaptation of Brian Masters' book on the case, Prescription for Murder. He portrayed Harold Wilson, the former Prime Minister, in the 2006 BBC documentary The Plot Against Harold Wilson.

He appeared in Frank Loesser's musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Chichester Festival Theatre during the 2005 summer season. He is currently playing Grandpa in the Cbeebies show Grandpa In My Pocket.

In 2009 he played Ken Lewis, CEO of the Bank of America, in the television dramatisation The Last Days of Lehman Brothers.

His appearances on the London stage include Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell by Keith Waterhouse and Ben Elton´s play, Gasping.

Bolam was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.

It was announced on 20 September 2011, that Bolam had quit the role of Jack Halford in New Tricks, just days after two more series were commissioned.