The Liver Birds and Series 1 starred Pauline Collins as Dawn and Polly James as Beryl Hennessey. In Series 2, Nerys Hughes debuted as Sandra Hutchinson, replacing Dawn for the rest of the programme's run. The Beryl-and-Sandra pairing is generally regarded as the programme's best period. Beryl was the more 'common' one, while Sandra was soft-spoken and more refined, due to the influence of her snobbish, overbearing mother (Mollie Sugden). Carla Lane drew on her own mother for the character – "Mrs Hutchinson, I think she was my mother. I'm sure she was my mother". Beryl's 'common' mother (the Hennesseys live in Bootle,
The Liver Birds Sykes and Sheila Hancock, and on "The Likely Lads". Carla Lane wrote most of the episodes, Taylor co-writing only the first two series. The pilot was shown on 14th April 1969 as an episode of "Comedy Playhouse", the BBC's breeding ground for sitcoms at the time. 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. Dressed in the best 1970s fashions, they looked for romance in a loose female equivalent of "The Likely Lads". The pilot