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Carla Lane

Carla Lane

Writing

Biography

Carla Lane (born Romana Barrack) was an English writer and producer, known for "The Liver Birds" (1969), "Butterflies" (1978) and "Bless This House" (1971). She was married to Arthur Hollins. She was a lifelong vegetarian who inherited her interest in animal welfare from her grandfather, an RSPCA supervisor. In 1989 she awarded an O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for her services to the television industry. but returned it in 2002 in protest at a C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) being awarded to the managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company which specialise in testing on animals.

Known For

Bread
7.1

Bread is a British television sitcom, written by Carla Lane, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC1 from 1 May 1986 to 3 November 1991. The series focused on the devoutly-Catholic and extended Boswell family of Liverpool, in the district of Dingle, led by its matriarch Nellie through a number of ups and downs as they tried to make their way through life in Thatcher's Britain with no visible means of support. The street shown at the start of each programme is Elswick Street. A family called Boswell had also featured in Lane's earlier sitcom The Liver Birds and Lane admitted in interviews that the two families were probably related. Nellie's feckless and estranged husband, Freddie, left her for another woman known as 'Lilo Lill'. Her children Joey, Jack, Adrian, Aveline and Billy continued to live in the family home in Kelsall Street and contributed money to the central family fund, largely through benefit fraud and the sale of stolen goods.

Bread

1986
Brass Eye
7.7

Investigative reporter Chris Morris puts modern Britain under the spotlight, and smacks the issues of the day till they bleed. He tackles weighty issues including animals, drugs, sex and skewered celebrities and politicians alike - and in a later episode in 2001, paedophiles.

Brass Eye

1997
Comedy Playhouse
6.0

Comedy Playhouse is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010.

Comedy Playhouse

1961
Butterflies
7.2

Ria Parkinson is a bored housewife and mother. She spends her time daydreaming, and meets regularly with wealthy businessman Leonard to relieve the monotony. Husband Ben, a dentist and avid butterfly collector is oblivious to it all, and her unemployed grown up sons, who both live at home also have other things on their minds, especially girlfriends.

Butterflies

1978
Bless This House
7.6

Bless this house is a British sitcom starring Sid James and Diana Coupland that aired on ITV from the 2nd February 1971 to the 22nd April 1976. It was written by Derek Collyer, David Comming, B.C. Cummins, Harry Driver, George Evans, Dave Freeman, Carla Lane, Brian Platt, Vince Powell, Adele Rose, Mike Sharland, Bernie Sharp, Myra Taylor, Jon Watkins and Lawrie Wyman. It was made for the ITV network by Thames Television. In 2004, Bless this house came 67th in Britain's best sitcom.

Bless This House

1971
The Liver Birds
6.1

The Liver Birds is a British sitcom set in the city of Liverpool, in the north-west of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. These two Liverpudlian writers had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents. Having been invited to London by Michael Mills and asked to write about two young women sharing a flat, Mills brought in sitcom expert Sydney Lotterby to work with the writing team. Lotterby had previously worked with Eric Sykes, Sheila Hancock and on The Likely Lads. Carla Lane in fact wrote most of the episodes, Taylor co-writing only the first two series. The pilot was shown as an episode of Comedy Playhouse, the BBC's breeding ground for sitcoms, in April 1969.

The Liver Birds

1969
No image
5.0

Martha and Daniel have got used to things being nice - their house, their kids, their life — so when they decide to part, naturally it will be nicely.

Leaving

1984
Solo
7.0

Gemma Palmer is 30 years old, and fed up with being betrayed and taken for granted. She's just found out her boyfriend, Danny, has been having sex with her friend, Gloria, and this is the last straw. She throws Danny out, tells Gloria to go jump in a lake, tells off all the people who have been treating her like a doormat, and quits her boring job at an estate agent's. From now on, she's going solo. At least, that is her firm intention.

Solo

1981
There's Only One Paul McCartney
8.0

An affectionate portrait of the man and the musician in a week that sees the ex-Beatie playing at the Buckingham Palace concert. With contributions from Bono, Mike Myers , Dustin Hoffman , Meryl Streep , Cilia Black, Bob Geldof , Dale Winton , Travis and Richard Branson

There's Only One Paul McCartney

2002
The Funny Side of Christmas
N/A

Skits from: "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin"; "The Les Dawson Show"; "Yes Minister"; "Only Fools and Horses"; "Three of a Kind"; "Last of the Summer Wine"; "Sorry!"; "Butterflies"; "Smith and Jones"; and "Open All Hours".

The Funny Side of Christmas

1982
No image
10.0

Events in the lives of the Parkinsons, a middle-class American family: Rea, a very attractive 40-year-old housewife and mother who worries about growing old and being a drudge; Ben, her candid and indifferent husband, a dentist who collects butterflies; and her grown sons, Adam and Russell. Based on the British TV series of the same title.

Butterflies

1979
Happy Christmas, I Love You
N/A

It is Christmas Eve. Bruce and Renee speak to us from the appropriate corners of their home and we discover that, after 23 years of marriage, they know absolutely nothing about each other.

Happy Christmas, I Love You

1989
Over the Hill
N/A

Keeping it real and raunchy in the valley.

Over the Hill

2018
The Last Supper
N/A

Terence is a butcher, his wife Eden a vegetarian. At their last supper together before their divorce, he tries to fathom why she has left him. After all, he is a reasonable man.

The Last Supper

1990
Luv Wave
6.3

BC 2039, Tokyo. Top agents Alice and Kaoru Mikogami succeeded in the assassination of the CIA technology hacker Mercy Spectre. However, his memory and personality has invaded the network, invading the minds of drug abusers. Within this ocean of computer networks, Mercy is becoming virtually unstoppable!

Luv Wave

2000