Boobirt
Stylish but barely mediocre overall
Fluentiama
Perfect cast and a good story
Jemima
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
ianlouisiana
The "girls" are nigh - on pensioners,Dorien looks like something from the health warning on a fag packet....please give it up ladies. Yet still it prospers and is being re - run on "Freeview" about every ten minutes - then there's the stage show...I'm obviously missing something. Most weeks either of the three stars are on the front page of the women's mags and it's a shame that these fine actors are mainly known for what is their least work. Miss Quirke in particular has real presence. Only Miss Joseph has maintained her accent over the years,unfailingly hitting the right note. Mesdames Quirke and Robson wax and wane with their Cockerney,sometimes in the same sentence. Back in 1989,bright - eyed and bushy - tailed,Sharon and Tracey were prison widows,dutifully visiting their worthless blokes in the nick,exchanging witty banter over the kitchen island in Chigwell. By the end of the last series they were dull - eyed and raddled,spouting crudities and less than subtle innuendo like Alan Carr without the inhibitions. Still,as long as the cheques keep coming in,eh ladies?
studioAT
Thanks to new Freeview channel 'Drama' this 90's sitcom can be seen by a whole new audience and with over 9 series worth of episodes to show it is a pretty safe way for them to fill their schedules.I can only compare this show to another penned by Marks and Gran (and later farmed out to other writers) 'Goodnight Sweetheart' in the sense that while the leads give good performances they are often let down by dull plots and poor writing when it is not Marks and Gran in control. At times the jokes are slow coming that you can think of the punch lines before they are spoken and like many a sitcom before it 'Birds' should've ended long before it did.Though saying that, after a successful stage run it looks like the show is returning to ITV in 2014 so perhaps the birds are going to fly again. Hopefully with a few more laughs.
Trent Nickson
Birds of a Feather has just began airing on cable in Australia, so we're getting to see the series right from the beginning again - and it's just as funny as the first time around!Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson are two wonderful actresses that do a great job with the series. They noticably get better as the series progresses as they get more comfortable with their roles. They do a great job as sisters, and actually come across as being sisters as well!However, a lot of the real laughs come from Lesley Josephs character, Dorian Green. Recently an episode aired where Sharon (Pauline Quirke) got into the finals of a karaoke contest and got too nervous to sing. Her sister Tracy (Linda Robson) wasn't going to be singing either.To their surprise, Dorian gets up on stage and sings. Now Dorian is a complete man-eater, and the song she sang was Like a Virgin. It was the funniest thing I've seen in years - especially the part when all you can see are her legs above the crowd!The husbands are really quite linear and are always doing the same thing - they're really only there to keep the plot moving along at times.One of the best sitcoms to come out of Britain - and I hope it's put on DVD sometime soon!
makeajesting
Words don't do 'Birds Of A Feather' justice...It was, and still is, one of the BBC's most successfully series for a reason...This series; originally started in 1989 and ran for nearly 10 years, saw wealthy housewife Tracey's seemingly legit husband Daryl sentenced to 12 years in prison for armed robbery along with her brother-in-law Chris...Tracey's council-estate sister Sharon Theodopolopoudos, (she married a Greek) moves into Tracey's million pound Chigwell home, seemingly to keep her sister company through the transition.Nothing to do with getting away from her Edmonton Tower Block of course.Birds Of A Feather is a sharply written, superbly acted, laugh-out-loud comedy, telling the story of these sisters' daily struggle to make-ends-meet and still be able to afford a night out on the razz.Life however is never dull in Chigwell, especially not with the addition of their nosy, snobby, sex-mad man-eater neighbour Dorien Green.Dorien constantly riles the girls' working-class background, never missing an opportunity to make an affectionate dig at their 'C&A' clothes and cockney accents.Even though these course prisoners wives are the best friends she's ever had.Over the course of the series' run, we see these characters not only become household names, but the actors, Pauline Quirke, Lesley Joseph and Linda Robson become stronger in their performances and abilities than you would ever have believed possible, leading them on to such remarkable performances as the terrifying 'The Sculptress' in which Pauline Quirke plays multiple serial killer Olive Martin.This series is truly in a league of its own.Words don't do it justice and I cannot recommend it highly enough.You'll laugh with them, and cry with them.With Shal, Trace and Dor; you'll enjoy the ride.
