Review for The Liver Birds - Collection Two

It’s not altogether surprising that The Liver Birds began life as a Comedy Playhouse pilot. In common with many sitcoms of the era, it has a kind of stagey feel about it.


The two young ‘Liver Birds’ who penned it (Carla Lane and Myra Taylor) had never written for TV before but had certainly lived the life themselves and it was perhaps that earthy authenticity that made it such a runaway success from the off.

The first series (now pretty much lost, presumed wiped, sadly) featured Dawn(Pauline Collins) and Beryl (Polly James) sharing a flat and living more liberated lives than their Mothers would have been able to. After this initial series, Pauline Collins was replaced by the warmer Nerys Hughes as Sandra, a ‘posher’ bird who provided the perfect foil to Beryl’s harder edges.


This second collection, confusingly housing the complete series three for the first time ever on DVD, catches them at their finest, now in full flow and working brilliantly together.


It sees them arriving at a bigger flat (easier to film in!) and the scene is quickly set for a whole variety of amusing capers, frequently involving dates, but occasionally touching on wider issues of work, unions, religion and politics.


Highlight episodes see the girls enjoying a poetry reading at a nearby pub (with Roger McGough reading a lengthy poem – you wouldn’t see that in a comedy today!), as well as a flat-warming party, losing their jobs and signing on, getting new ones but having trouble with the union, becoming dual god-parents to Beryl’s sister’s baby , hiring horses, learning to drive, following the footie and almost becoming Miss Hot Pants 1972. Never a dull moment!


The first episode feels a little stagey, with Polly james really delivering her lines to the back of the hall, presumably to a live audience, but it soon settles into great comedy from Episode 2 on and quickly hits its stride.


The episodes are generally in great shape with just the title sequence and exteriors looking a little grainy – presumably shot on 16mm in contrast to the video-taped studio pieces. They’re presented in transmission order which is just as well as, though you can watch episodes individually, there are occasional points of series continuity, like Beryl getting a cold in one episode (Birds on Strike) and nursing it in the next (Fella a Day Girl).

The extras are a bit paltry with just text based biographies. A contemporary interview would have been nice – after all, Nerys Hughs is still up for doing shows like ‘Celebrity Mr. & Mrs.’ So may have been available? But we shouldn’t grumble. It’s fantastic that archive material like this gets released at all. Let’s hope sales are good enough to justify further season releases.
It’s a two-disc set presented in a standard sturdy plastic case with suitably seventies purple packaging.



The DVD should also be issued with a warning. If you watch all 13 episodes in quick succession you’ll struggle to get The Scaffold’s theme song out of your head. The ultimate ear-worm culminating in that lovely bit of Liverpudlian dialogue.

Man: “You dancin’?’”
Lady: “You askin’?”
Man: “I’m askin’”
Lady: “I’m dancin’”.

Fantastic stuff!

So here’s what you get in transmission order.

Episode Guide

1. One's A Crowd (Originally Broadcast 11th Feb 1972)

2. Birds On The Dole (Originally Broadcast 18th Feb 1972)

3. Good Little Girls Should Be In Bed (Originally Broadcast 25th Feb 1972)

4. Birds On Strike (Originally Broadcast 3rd March 1972)

5. Fella-A-Day Girl (Originally Broadcast 10th March 1972)

6. Birds And Bottom Drawers (Originally Broadcast 17th March 1972)

7. The Christening (Originally Broadcast 24th March 1972)

8. Birds On Horseback (Originally Broadcast 31st March 1972)

9. St Valentine's Day (Originally Broadcast 7th April 1972)

10. Birds In The Club (Originally Broadcast 14th April 1972)

11. The Driving Test (Originally Broadcast 28th April 1972)

12. Liverpool Or Everton (Originally Broadcast 5th May 1972)

13. The Parrot (Originally Broadcast 12th May 1972)