Budgie (TV series)

Last updated

Budgie
Adam Faith in Budgie.jpg
Iain Cuthbertson (left) and Adam Faith in Budgie
Created by Keith Waterhouse
Willis Hall
Starring Adam Faith
Iain Cuthbertson
Lynn Dalby
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of series2
No. of episodes26
Production
Running time50 minutes
Production company London Weekend
Original release
Network ITV
Release9 April 1971 (1971-04-09) 
14 July 1972 (1972-07-14)
Related
Charles Endell Esq.

Budgie is a British television series starring popstar Adam Faith which was produced by ITV company London Weekend Television and broadcast on the ITV network between 1971 and 1972. [1]

Contents

The series was created by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. The show was produced by Verity Lambert with Rex Firkin as Executive Producer. In an interview for the 2006 DVD release, Lambert stated that the series was originally going to be called The Loser but this was rejected by the TV Network. The show had two theme songs: the first was "The Loner" by The Milton Hunter Orchestra, and the second was "Nobody's Fool" written by Ray Davies and performed by Cold Turkey.

Series plot

The series consisted of a sequence of stories – sometimes spread across two episodes – depicting Budgie's involvement in some hare-brained scheme to make money, usually somewhere on the wrong side of legality, and invariably for the local boss, Mr Endell. He often failed in his aim, being continually the victim of circumstance or of the sharper, more experienced underworld operators he tried to emulate.

The opening credits were particularly iconic: showing Budgie trying to grab large numbers of banknotes blowing in the wind.

Plots included:

Series One

The story begins with Ronald Bird (nicknamed "Budgie") being released from an open prison and trying to find a living in whatever way possible. He meets Charlie Endell in a bar with a 15-year-old stripper (Adrienne Posta) and Endell asks Budgie to look after her for a week. Budgie asks his part-time actress girlfriend Hazel Fletcher (Lynn Dalby) to help.

In the one-hour pilot he accidentally steals the wrong Ford Transit but this is beneficial as it is a police-owned van full of confiscated pornography heading for destruction. Budgie reckons he can sell it, however Mr Endell insists that he burns it all. The wind catches the paper and the pornography blows off the bonfire just as a busload of cricket players arrive. Budgie comes away with a fruit machine from the cricket club which he takes to Hazel's flat.

They drive off but his assistant Grogan says he is going off with Charity (the stripper). Budgie is left to explain this to Mr Endell.

Eventually all his supposed friends desert him; he ends up back in court for handling stolen goods: a fruit machine stolen from a cricket club and featured in the storyline of the first episode. In reality, Charlie Endell has shopped him for this. Ironically one of Budgie's lesser crimes, he is found guilty... not helped by poor advice from his lawyer.

Series Two

Series two begins with Budgie in an "open nick": Fern Open Prison. Fellow prisoners include Wossname Walsh (James Bolam). Budgie has three weeks left until release. He has had few visitors until Mr Endell comes, but only is there to retrieve £3,000 from another prisoner, Dutchy Holland (Bill Dean). Budgie will get a 10% cut if he can retrieve this. When Budgie is released two cars are waiting: his ex-wife and Charlie. He must choose.

On release (episode two of series 2) he stays with his wife for a few days. He encounters a street preacher (Gordon Jackson) who leads "The Brothers of Happiness". A chance meeting with his ex-girlfriend Hazel, who is now living with someone else, and Budgie finding out that his wife has been sleeping with a friend of Budgie's, from the same open prison, force Budgie to move back in with his girlfriend and his son Howard, who is now two years old. Budgie carried on much as he did in the first series, which also started with him being released from the same open prison from a previous sentence. The second series ended with him being beaten up by both his boss and one of his henchmen. This, combined with the fact that Budgie's mother has recently died, his father not wanting him, his girlfriend becoming pregnant by Budgie, and that he wants to leave Hazel for a stripper he has recently slept with who then tells him that she is moving abroad, makes Budgie even more depressed and eventually makes him head off into a new life. This is where the series ended.

Cast

The title role, a chirpy cockney petty criminal newly out of prison, was played by pop singer Adam Faith; it was his first starring role for television. [2] The character's name was Ronald 'Budgie' Bird, nicknamed after the budgerigar birds sometimes kept as pets in England.

The series co-starred Iain Cuthbertson as Charles (Charlie) Endell, a suave and Machiavellian Glaswegian gangster based in London, who employed Budgie, often against his own better judgement, or when he was in need of an unsuspecting scapegoat. June Lewis played his silent wife Mrs Endell. During the late 1970s, Scottish Television produced a short-lived spin-off series, Charles Endell Esquire .

The only other regular member of the cast was Lynn Dalby as Budgie's girlfriend, Hazel Fletcher. Stella Tanner had a semi-regular role as her mother, Mrs Fletcher. Rio Fanning appeared three times as Budgie's gullible criminal Irish pal, Grogan. Guest stars included Georgina Hale as Budgie's wife Jean, George Tovey as his father, Jack Bird, and Adrienne Posta as a stripper. John Rhys-Davies had an early semi-regular role as a corpulent gangster working for Endell, with the name of Laughing Spam Fritter.

Budgie's dad Jack Bird is played by George Tovey and his mum Alice by Julia McCarthy. His sister Violet (Vi) is played by Anne Carrol. Vi's fiancée/husband Tony Pringle is played by Donald Douglas. The neighbour Mrs L. is Barbara New. Charlie Endell's mousey wife is played by June Lewis.

Series two broadened the characters to include Endell's secretary, Mrs Beecham (Nan Munro) and Budgie's wife (Georgina Hale). Avril Elgar played Mrs Silverstone, a rich woman being fleeced by a fake religious movement led by "Soapy Simon" (Gordon Jackson).

Derek Jacobi played Hazel's cousin Herbert in one episode where Budgie introduces him to the sordid side of London's Soho district. Kenneth Cranham was the main support as Inky Ballantine in the episode "24000 Ballpoint Pens", with Alfie Bass in the same episode as the ironically named fence, Dickie Silver.

Budgie's "bit on the side", Inga Loveborg, was played by Margaret Nolan.

Production

Two series, each of 13 episodes, were made. Although colour equipment had been introduced two years earlier, the first four episodes were made in monochrome because of industrial action.

A further series may have been planned for 1973, although this coincided with Adam Faith being seriously injured in a car crash, and announcing his retirement from acting as a result. Despite a full recovery by Faith and his eventual return to acting, a further series was never commissioned. [3] The television channel Talking Pictures TV began a repeat of the entire series from 13 April 2024.

Musical version

A musical based on the characters of the series (but featuring only Adam Faith from the original TV cast), with a book by the scriptwriters of the original series, opened at the Cambridge Theatre in London on 18 October 1988, and ran for three months.

Related Research Articles

<i>Auf Wiedersehen, Pet</i> British television comedy drama series (1983–2004)

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is a British comedy-drama television programme about seven British construction workers who leave the United Kingdom to search for employment overseas. In the first series, the men live and work on a building site in Düsseldorf. The series was created by Franc Roddam after an idea from Mick Connell, a bricklayer from Stockton-on-Tees, and mostly written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who also wrote The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Porridge. It starred Tim Healy, Kevin Whately, Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, Christopher Fairbank, Pat Roach and Gary Holton, with Noel Clarke replacing Holton for series three and four and the two-part finale. The series were broadcast on ITV in 1983–1984 and 1986. After a sixteen-year gap, two series and a Christmas special were shown on BBC One in 2002 and 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Sheen</span> American film and television actor (born 1965)

Carlos Irwin Estévez, known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He is known as a leading man in film and television. Over his fifty-year career he has received numerous accolades including a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards. In 1994 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

<i>Two and a Half Men</i> American television sitcom (2003–2015)

Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn that originally aired on CBS from September 22, 2003, to February 19, 2015, with a total of twelve seasons consisting of 262 episodes. Originally starring Charlie Sheen in the lead role alongside Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones, the series was about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper, his uptight brother, Alan, and Alan's mischievous son, Jake. As Alan's marriage falls apart and divorce appears imminent, he and Jake move into Charlie's beachfront Malibu house and complicate Charlie's freewheeling life.

<i>Upstairs, Downstairs</i> (1971 TV series) British drama television series (1971–1975)

Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) for ITV. It ran for 68 episodes divided into five series on ITV from 1971 to 1975.

Jackie Vernon was an American stand-up comedian and actor who was best known for his role as the voice of Frosty the Snowman in the Rankin/Bass Productions Christmas special Frosty the Snowman and its sequel, Frosty's Winter Wonderland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iain Cuthbertson</span> Scottish actor (1930–2009)

Iain Cuthbertson was a Scottish character actor and theatre director. He was known for his tall imposing build and also his distinctive gravelly, heavily accented voice. He had lead roles in The Borderers (1968–70),Tom Brown's Schooldays (1971), Budgie (1971–72), its spinoff Charles Endell Esquire (1979–80), Danger UXB (1979) and Sutherland's Law (1973–76), as well as the films The Railway Children (1970), and Gorillas in the Mist (1988). He guest starred in many prominent British shows including The Avengers, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, The Onedin Line, Survivors, Ripping Yarns, Doctor Who, Z-Cars, Juliet Bravo, Rab C. Nesbitt, Minder, Inspector Morse and Agatha Christie's Poirot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Gregg</span> American actress (1916–1986)

Virginia Lee Gregg was an American actress known for her many roles in radio dramas and television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lol Tolhurst</span> British drummer and keyboardist

Laurence Andrew Tolhurst is an English musician, songwriter, producer, and author. He was a founding member of the Cure, for which he first played drums before switching to keyboards. He left the Cure in 1989 and later formed the bands Presence and Levinhurst. He has also published two books and developed the Curious Creatures podcast. His most recent studio release is the album Los Angeles (2023), in collaboration with Budgie and Jacknife Lee.

Californication is an American comedy-drama television series, created by Tom Kapinos that originally aired for seven seasons and 84 episodes on Showtime from August 13, 2007, to June 29, 2014. The show follows New Yorker Hank Moody, a troubled novelist who moves to California and suffers from writer's block. His drinking, womanizing, and drug abuse complicate his relationships with his longtime lover, Karen, and their daughter, Becca.

Lynn Dalby is an English actress.

Adrienne Posta is a British actress and singer, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s. She adopted the surname 'Posta' in 1966.

<i>3rd & Bird</i> Childrens television series

3rd & Bird is a children's animated television series created by Josh Selig and directed by Jennifer Oxley. The series was animated by Little Airplane Productions, which opened a second studio in London to produce it. The show revolves around a community of birds and their adventures. It was broadcast on the BBC's CBeebies channel from 1 July 2008 to 31 July 2010. Described in its initial press release as "a charming new animated series all about community", the show's format generally involves one or more of the characters encountering a problem which must be solved using the social skills which pre-school children must develop in order to make their way in the world.

<i>Charles Endell Esquire</i> British TV drama series (1979–1980)

Charles Endell Esquire is a British comedy-drama series that is a spin-off of the series Budgie, with the role of Endell continuing to be played by Iain Cuthbertson. Due to an ITV technicians' strike which took the network completely off the air for three months, the first two episodes were broadcast in 1979 and the remaining episodes were not aired until a full repeat of the series began on 26 April 1980 on almost all ITV regions, except Southern Television and Westward Television. Only six episodes were made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Alden</span> American Congregational minister (1836-1911)

Edwin Hyde "Robert" Alden was an American Congregational minister. He was one of the many real people upon whom Laura Ingalls Wilder based a character in the Little House on the Prairie series of books and the NBC television series of the same name.

<i>Anger Management</i> (TV series) American television sitcom

Anger Management is an American television multi-camera sitcom created by Bruce Helford that premiered on FX on June 28, 2012. The series is loosely based on the 2003 film of the same title and stars Charlie Sheen in a variation of the Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson film. The series received 5.74 million viewers in its debut, breaking the record as the most-watched sitcom premiere in US cable television history. On November 7, 2014, FX announced that the series would end after its 100th episode, which aired on December 22, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida Moore</span> American actress (1882–1964)

Ida Moore was an American film and television actress.

References

  1. Budgie | A Television Heaven Review Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Budgie | A Television Heaven Review Archived 29 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "Budgie | A Television Heaven Review". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2007.. Retrieved 31 August 2007