Television sitcom writer Carla Lane dies, aged 87

31 May 2016

Television writer Carla Lane, who created shows including the 1980s Liverpool sitcom Bread, has died aged 87.

Lane, who was born in Liverpool and later became known for her animal rights activism, also wrote Butterflies and co-wrote The Liver Birds.

Lane first became known for The Liver Birds, a sitcom that focused on the lives of two women who shared a flat together in Liverpool, co-writing and creating the programme with her friend and fellow Liverpudlian Myra Taylor.

The programme aired from 1969 to 1979 and returned for a one-off series in 1996.

Her next sitcom, Butterflies, which aired from 1978 to 1983, focused on the lives of the Parkinson family and helped launch the career of actor Nicholas Lyndhurst.

Lane then created and wrote Bread, which focused on the working class Boswell family as they struggled through the city’s high unemployment and poor prospects in the late 1980s. It aired for seven series between 1986 and 1991.

Much of her work focused on women’s lives and featured frustrated housewives and working class matriarchs.

She received an OBE for services to writing in 1989 but returned it to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002 in disgust at animal cruelty.

In 1995, Lane was given a Royal Television Society award for her Outstanding Contribution to British Television.

She died at Stapely Care Home on Tuesday, her family confirmed.