What Was Carla Lane's First TV Hit?

Carla Lane first made her name with "The Liver Birds," a sitcom which started life as a 1969 "Comedy Playhouse." Written in collaboration with Myra Taylor and Lew Schwartz, it was about the comic adventures of two single girls sharing a flat in 1970s Liverpool. Various actresses tried the two main roles; the most successful pairing was Nerys Hughes and Polly James. Hughes played Sandra, a shy, rather prim girl with middle-class pretensions and high ideals (she is a strict vegetarian, for instance.) James's character Beryl was much brasher and more down to earth. The two played together from 1971-74, when Beryl got married and James left the series. After that, she was replaced by Elizabeth Estensen, a similar character to Beryl but with a large family whose antics increasingly shared the limelight with the stars.
There was an attempt to revive the series in 1996 with the original actresses, but it was unsuccessful.