162 The Liver Birds

First  watched  : 1974

Despite  the  still  above, I  just  caught  the  tail  end  of  the  Polly  James  era  when  BBC  moved  it  to  the  18.50  pm  time  slot  towards  the  end  of  her  lat  series.

The  series  marked  the  TV  debut  for  housewife-turned-writer  Carla  Lane  initially  in  tandem  with  Myra  Taylor. It  was  developed  from  a  1969  pilot  under  the  Comedy  Playhouse  banner.  The  premise  of  the  series  was  that  two  young  working  girls  shared  a  flat  in  Liverpool  and  dealt  with  boyfriends , work  and  family  as  well  as  the  strains  of  living  with  each  other. Initially  it  starred  Pauline  Collins  and  Polly  James  but  only  ran  for  four  episodes  due  to  Polly's  theatre  commitments. By  the  time  she  was  free  to  resume  Collins  was  the  star  of  Upstairs  Downstairs   and  had  to  be  replaced  by  a  new  character  Sandra  played  by  Welsh  actress  Nerys  Hughes.  Along  with  Sandra  came  her  overbearing  mother  Mrs  Hutchinson  played by  Mollie  Sugden.

Polly  James  left  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  series  when  her  character  Beryl  got  married. It  was  her  own  choice,   believing  that  Beryl  was  becoming  a  bit  of  a  caricature.  She  would  continue  in acting  both  on  stage  and  on  screen  until  the early  noughties  but  would never have  as  high  a  profile  again.

She  was  replaced  by  Elizabeth  Estensen  , as  the  younger  but  equally  loud   Carol. The  show  took  a  new  direction  by  giving  Carol  an  extended  family  who  were  regularly  involved  in  the  storylines  most  memorably  Michael  Angelis  in  his  breakthrough  role  as  her  hippy  brother  Lucien  who  was  obsessed  with  rabbits. They  became  the main  reason  for  watching the  show  with  the  downside  that  Sandra  came  to  be  seen  as  a  rather  wet  and  straight  character  by  comparison.

I'm  not  sure  if  I  watched the  series  down  to  its  end  in  early  1979  or  not.  After  a  quiet  period  Nerys  Hughes  went  on  to  equal  success   in  The  District  Nurse  in  the eighties  Estensen  also  had   long  spells  out  of  the  spotlight  until  resurfacing  in  Coronation  Street  in 1996  and then  Emmerdale    ( it  took  weeks  before  I  recognised  her )  where  she  remains.  Angelis's  impact  can  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that  Lucien  was  brought  back  for  the ill-received  reprise  in  1996  but  as  Beryl's  brother. That series  passed  by  me  entirely.