The Liver Birds "Man is the dog, and woman is the bone. He eats the best of you, and buries the rest of you, and when his dish is empty—he'll dig you up again." 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." Producer Sydney Lotterby had to find a new leading actress to keep the series going after Polly James' departure. In 1971 he'd replaced Pauline Collins with Nerys Hughes, and Hughes herself
The Liver Birds the BBC revived the series, reuniting Beryl and Sandra as they coped with the aftermath of their respective failed marriages. As the BBC's own website admits, some liberties were taken with continuity: Carmel McSharry, who had played Carol's mother in series 5–9, 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 revival was not a ratings success and only lasted one series. Only the second series was released on DVD, by Universal Playback in the UK in 2003. It has since gone out of print, with retailers such