The Liver Birds

1 9 6 9 - 1 9 79 (UK)
1 9 9 6 (UK)
83 x 30 minute episodes
2 x 40 minute episodes
1x 35 minute episode

The Liver Birds (the key word rhymes with 'saliva') was the distaff answer to The Likely Lads, charting the exploits of two estrogen-charged dolly-birds with more loon pants than sense, sharing a flat on Huskisson Street, and hell bent on pulling all the "gear" guys on Merseyside.

Originally the two 'liver birds' (the title originated in the name given to two sculpted birds perched atop the Royal Liver Building at Pier Head in the city of Liverpool) were Dawn and Beryl. But after five episodes Dawn decided to move on and Beryl found a new flat mate in the posh, bosomy Sandra Hutchinson (Nerys Hughes).  At the end of series 4, Beryl got married and Carol Boswell (Elizabeth Estensen) took her place in the flat. Launched as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, The Liver Birds was the creation of first-time writers Carla Lane and Myra Taylor - Liverpool housewives who loosely based their characters and storylines upon their own experiences.

The first nine series' concentrated on the problems the two young single women encountered when dealing with their boyfriends, work, parents and each other.

The girls may have seemed on the surface like a pair of "up for it" dolly birds, but in reality they were floral-frocked fluff heads, staggering around their flat in platform clogs, waiting for Mr Right to come and make their lives worthwhile. Waiting, talking about it, but never initiating. This was a breakthrough period for young, single women following centuries of repression - they had independence, both sexual and financial, and the opportunity to live life as they wanted it, and Carla Lane's scripts reflected this admirably, as well as sketching the uncertainties and philosophies of being single when everyone else seemed to be married.

During its heyday with Beryl and Sandra, there was a robust energy about the desperation in which the girls went to parties, trawled for 'talent' and threw themselves into relationships. 

Beryl was the more common one, spontaneous, scatty and with a voice so staggeringly piercing that you could hear it on the other channel; Sandra was quieter, more cautious, optimistic and refined, mainly  thanks to the influence of her snobbish and overbearing mother (Mollie Sugden). The arrival of scatty Carol was used to introduce a wider circle of characters including her larger than life catholic parents and rabbit-obsessed brother Lucien. Interestingly their family name - Boswell - reappeared in Carla Lane's 1980 series Bread.

The program was revived in 1996, with Beryl and Sandra now both coping with the aftermath of failed marriages. There was a strange lapse in continuity which resulted in Carol's mother and brother becoming Beryl's mother and brother!  The  revival was less than successful and no further programs were made.

TRIVIA NOTE
Nerys Hughes and Polly James appeared in The Last Waltz, a specially scripted celebration that brought together the key characters from four Carla Lane series - The Liver Birds, Bread, Solo and Butterflies - screened by BBC1 on March 10 1989 as part of Comic Relief.