Birds of a Feather made Pauline Quirke, Lesley Joseph and Linda Robson household stars when it launched in the late 1980s – but a tame swear word provoked a furious backlash from viewers
Lesley Joseph has opened up about an early scandal that rocked Birds of a Feather back in the 1980s (
Birds of a Feather may be one of the UK’s most loved sitcoms – but the very first episode sparked a furious backlash for a surprisingly mild reason.Show stars Pauline Quirke, Lesley Joseph and Linda Robson became household favourites when they first starred on the hit TV show as Sharon Theodopolopodous, Dorian Green and Tracey Stubbs way back in 1989. But TV tastes of the 1980s were far more tame compared to present day standards and a deluge of complaints were sparked when the show first aired due to a rather mild piece of language.
Iconic show star Lesley, 78, has cast her mind back to the early days of the comedy show and explained why 300 complaints were made to Ofcom when the show began. The star – who appeared in all 12 seasons of the show – has also shared her thoughts as to why the show went on to be such a huge hit.
Bird of a Feather debuted on the BBC from 1989 until 1998 before being revived by ITV in 2014 where it ran for a further six years. And at its peak, the show pulled in almost 20 million viewers while routinely enjoying audiences of more than 12 million per episode.
Linda Robson has denied she and Pauline Quirke fell out after starring on the show for decades ( BBC)
Discussing the past success of the show on the Open The Box radio show hosted by Jo Brand on Boom Radio, Lesley said: “There were about 300 complaints after the first episode because Pauline said ‘bloody’. We’re talking about 1989, so it’s a long way back but it hit the ground running. We loved working with each other. The one thing we could always do is time gags and it just really took off.”
The show went on to enjoy huge success – and cemented Lesley along with 64-year-old Pauline and 66-year-old Linda as household names. In more recent years, the show was rocked by rumours of a bitter rift between the cast as reports suggested Linda and Lesley fell out with Pauline behind-the-scenes. Panic rose among fans when Pauline was noticeably absent from the 2020 Christmas special.
However, the cast have worked had to try to downplay the suggestion of back-stage bitching. Linda previously told Women’s Own: “We have so much history together, me and Pauline have been best friends since we were 10 years old. Lesley I’ve known since the first series of Birds of a Feather. Pauline doesn’t like all the social events but me and Lesley love that. Pauline hates live TV as well, she’ll only ever come on Loose Women if I am on there because she feels safe then.”
Linda has also publicly said that Pauline has retired from acting. She also admitted she was disappointed she couldn’t convince her friend into joining a live stage version of Birds of a Feather.
She said previously: “I’m not going to lie and say Lesley and I weren’t disappointed… Of course we were. We were gutted and we couldn’t imagine going on without her. We were a trio – how could it possibly work without any one of us? But at the same time as all that sadness, there was acceptance and understanding, too.”
