Series of Bird’s, A

1 9 6 7 (UK)
8 x 25 minute episodes

Following the critically mauled The Late Show, John Bird and John Fortune moved on to A Series of Bird’s. 

Breaking away from their established sketch comedy pattern, each episode of this new series – co-written by Bird and Fortune – had an actual storyline.

Premiering on Tuesday 3 October 1967 with ‘The Day of the Revolution’ – featuring a collection of incompetent revolutionaries and a pitch-perfect impersonation of Joan Bakewell from Eleanor Bron – the series was a much better vehicle for their talents.

The second episode, ‘The Plot of Land,’ had John Fortune becoming the proud owner of a plot of land and deciding to build a house on it – much to the delight of officialdom everywhere.

‘Here Come The Trendies’ had Bron and Fortune as a couple moving into a house in one of London’s rundown residential areas, much to the surprise and suspicion of the working-class neighbours. On the one side, there were the newcomers with their intellectual small talk about meditation and gurus, and on the other, the non-trendies (John Bird and Pat Coombs) thinking about little more than what was on the telly and how well their kidney beans were doing.

A two-part story introduced the unemployed Eric Giddings (Bird) who is chosen as the subject of a television documentary. Things become complicated when his wife wins a luxury holiday in a competition with the documentary only half made. How can Eric continue filming from the Mediterranean?

Other guests in the series included Michael Palin, Peter Cook, Warren Mitchell and Arthur Mullard.

Episodes

The Day of the Revolution | The Plot of Land | Here Come the Trendies | The Eric Giddings Story | The Eric Giddings Story 2: The Plot Thins | Back to the Front | Urban Renewal | Lucid Intervals