Like her or loathe her she did write some very good stuff.
RIP.
RIP Carla Lane
Quote: Chappers @ 31st May 2016, 9:44 PM BSTLike her or loathe her she did write som very good stuff.
RIP.
I am sorry to hear this news.
It seems to me that while "The Liver Birds" was welcomed without question by a broad audience - an equivalent perhaps to "The Likely Lads" - she came in for considerably more stick in respect of "Bread" and to a lesser extent "Butterflies". Whatever the viewing figures, it was fashionable to knock "Bread". Perhaps characteristically, I opened up to "Bread" at precisely the time people who were having a go at it. The more it was knocked, the more lurid my descriptions of it became rising to the somewhat ludicrous "Lane is a modern day Shakespeare". But where others saw in it a bit too much politicking and dare it be said Liverpudlian schmaltz, I was impressed by the combination of working class reality and poetical lyricism. With "The Liver Birds" more the former and "Butterflies" more the latter, it was the perfect bridge. Interestingly, all these years later it still does well in polls.
Really Lane sits as a writer in the category of post war humourists, mainly grammar school, like Galton and Simpson and similarly minded serious '60s kitchen sink novelists/dramatists like Barstow ("A Kind of Loving"), Sillitoe ("The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner") and Loach ("Cathy Come Home"). Of course, being a woman she was a trailblazer too. As the Winter of Discontent led to a new Conservatism, the country was divided in its willingness to take on her kinds of themes. I would argue, though, that she was a leader in what in the 1970s/1980s was the second wave of socially conscious comedy and drama. Add here John Sullivan's commanding "Only Fools and Horses" which was part Galton and Simpson, part "Minder" and part a counterpart to Lane's element of bittersweet. Plus Bleasdale's "Boys of the Blackstuff". All these people are true greats.
She wrote the Liver Birds with Myra Taylor.
Was Bread slagged off at the time? I thought it was only retrospectively with Political Correctness.
Anyway I enjoyed both these 2 and Butterflies even though the latter was a very gentle humour - more of a comedy drama really. Probably the first of its type.
Quote: Chappers @ 31st May 2016, 11:02 PM BSTShe wrote the Liver Birds with Myra Taylor.
Was Bread slagged off at the time? I thought it was only retrospectively with Political Correctness.
Anyway I enjoyed both these 2 and Butterflies even though the latter was a very gentle humour - more of a comedy drama really. Probably the first of its type.
I think it was slagged off by a lot of people in the South.
Anyhow, I liked it.
She was also an animal lover. 
I would've thought it was those in Liverpool itself who took offence.
Quote: Chappers @ 31st May 2016, 11:12 PM BSTI would've thought it was those in Liverpool itself who took offence.
If you don't mind, I don't think I am going to go there. 
Quote: A Horseradish @ 31st May 2016, 11:14 PM BSTIf you don't mind, I don't think I am going to go there.
Where - Liverpool?
Quote: Chappers @ 31st May 2016, 11:15 PM BSTWhere - Liverpool?
I never have been although I would love to go.
The self-therapist part of me is just a bit worried that it would have an impact on one of my coping mechanisms. The one that places me in "Strawberry Fields Forever" on the days when I am unable to access "Woodstock".
Whatever you think of her sitcoms she deserves a mention as one of the very few female sitcom writers, and probably the only non performing writer, meaning she had only her writing to get her noticed. She started in the 60s, now in so called gender equal PC 2016 there are no current female sitcom writers on the scene!
Butterflies was a decent gently funny sitcom with a strong cast.
RIP
A great writer with a plethora of great work that's she left behind for us all.
RIP Great writer - loved Liver Birds and Butterflies but Bread? Nah.
I see that she also wrote some scripts for Bless this House.
Such range. Scousers are naturally funny and men are useless without a woman behind them. Have I missed anything?
Liver Birds and Butterflies was a bit early for me but I never missed Bread even when they changed Joey. I'll never forget the episode where they bought a cupboard full of books and later discovered bank notes hidden in some of the books. Such a feel good episode where something went thier way for once.