The Liver Birds, 1969
The Liver Birds kicked off the eighth series of Comedy Playhouse in 1969. This was a particularly successful series in that including The Liver Birds, three pilots managed a full series.
Screened as part of Comedy Playhouse in 1969 the first in a run of 9 series would follow in 1971. The show became a classic with a revival series screened in 1996 taking the the number of series to ten.
Carla Lane recalled in an interview with us in 2014 how the idea came about “I had a good friend, but we parted whilst still only very young, I was thinking about the fun and giggles we used to have and thought others might find the idea funny.”
For the pilot and series that followed the line up was Polly James and Pauline Collins.
Summary
Dawn and Beryl are two ‘dolly birds’ sharing a flat together in Liverpool, but they don’t just share a flat they also share each others’ clothes, food and drink.
However they draw the line at boyfriends!
Clip
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Cast
Polly James – Beryl Hennessey
Pauline Collins – Dawn
Roy Marsden – Nigel
Hugh Walters – Terence
Details
Channel: BBC1
Created and Written By: Carla Lane and Myra Taylor
Produced By: Sydney Lotterby
Original Transmission Date: 14th April 1969
Where To Watch
Sadly the pilot episode and 4 episodes that made up series 1 were wiped. The above clip is all that remains.