The Liver Birds is a British sitcom, set in Liverpool, North West England, which aired on BBC1 from April 1969 to December 1978, and again in 1996.

The pilot was shown on 14 April 1969 as an episode of Comedy Playhouse, the BBC's breeding ground for sitcoms at the time.

[1] The series charted the ups and downs of two "dolly birds" sharing a flat on Liverpool's Huskisson Street, concentrating on the two young single women's dealings with boyfriends, work, parents and each other.

Beryl's 'common' mother (the Hennesseys live in Bootle, a working class district north of the city) was played by Sheila Fay.

The title comes from the name given to two sculpted birds perched on top of the Royal Liver Building at Pier Head in the city of Liverpool.

[1] The Scaffold – a pop group whose line-up comprisesd John Gorman, later of Tiswas fame, poet Roger McGough, and Mike McCartney – sang the title song.

The first series was stopped after four episodes because Polly James' hectic schedule—working every evening on Anne of Green Gables in the West End, then rehearsing all day for the TV show—was proving too much.

The producer Sydney Lotterby remembered having worked with Nerys Hughes on The Likely Lads and, wrongly believing the Welsh actress was from Liverpool, asked her to read for a part in The Liver Birds.

This would be the last series with Beryl; as Polly James explained: "The reason I left the programme in the end was that I felt I was in danger of caricaturing what was already a pretty outrageous character.

As the BBC's own website admits, some liberties were taken with continuity: Carmel McSharry, who had played Carol's mother in series 8-9 returned transformed into Beryl's mother, and Carol's rabbit-obsessed brother Lucien Boswell, played by Michael Angelis, became Beryl's brother Lucien Hennessey.

The Liver Birds: The Complete Second Series was released in Australia, in a set containing the correct transmission order, on 14 January 2010 via Madman Entertainment.

[99] In January 2013, it was announced that Acorn Media UK had obtained the rights to release The Liver Birds onto DVD.