Fans of Birds of A Feather will be asking themselves ‘what’ll I do?’ as news has broken that the show will never return to screens.
The hit comedy series ran for 12 seasons and 129 episodes between 1989 and 2020 – making household names of stars Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph as sister Sharon and Tracey and their saucy neighbour Dorien Green.
Show writer and creator Laurence Marks has confirmed he will never write another episode ever again despite over 30 years of success for the series as well as a well-received stage version.
The last episode to air was a special episode that aired in December 2020 with Tracey and Dorien coping with lockdown and the pandemic – with the episode filmed without Pauline’s Sharon amid reports she had fallen out with her co-stars.
Writer Laurence, 73, told the Daily Star: "You move on. I can’t imagine what more we could say. Also, the girls are very much older.
“When we created Sharon and Tracey, they were kids in their 20s. They had a whole sexual life in front of them and the show was all about sex. Now they’re women in their 60s, so it’s a different sort of series.”
The screenwriter, who co-wrote episodes with writing partner Maurice Gran, added: “We couldn’t have imagined we were writing something that would last for 30 years.
“I have a great deal of affection for Sharon, Tracey and Dorien. They are like friends in my life. We shared a lot of happy memories together.”
Birds of A Feather originally ran on BBC One from 1989 until 1998 and was then revived by ITV from 2014 until 2020 where it was a ratings smash with some episodes attracting over 12 million viewers.
Older episodes of the show on the BBC attracted ratings of almost 20 million.
A stage adaptation, titled the Birds of A Feather UK tour, hit the road in 2012 with the original female cast touring the country – and the success helping inspire the revived series.
Last year, there were reports the TV show had been cancelled following a fall out between the main stars.
Reports had suggested Pauline and Linda had fallen out behind-the-scenes leading to "real and tense issues" – and rumours this was why the Sharon Theodopolopodous character was absent in the final special episode.
Linda hit back at the reports, however, saying last July: "We haven't had a falling out, Pauline don't wanna act any more, she wants to concentrate on her academy.
"You've got to respect her wishes. We did the Christmas special, they asked us if we'd like to do it and we said yes."
She also rejected the idea of carrying on the show without Pauline, saying: "I'm not sure if I'd be able to do it on my own.
"Lesley looks amazing. She's 73 now and she looks the same as she did all those years ago."
