Butterflies

Picture shows Andrew Hall, Geoffrey Palmer, Wendy Craig and Nicholas Lyndhurst.

The first episode of Butterflies was broadcast on 10 November 1978, starring Wendy Craig as everywoman Ria Parkinson. Ria is "happily married, but not excitingly married" to Ben – played by Geoffrey Palmer. They have two unemployed sons, Adam and Russell – Nicholas Lyndhurst and Andrew Hall. Then she meets Leonard, who offers a hint of excitement. Carla Lane created Butterflies, mixing humour and pathos to keep viewers engaged in Ria’s mid-life crisis and the life of her family.

Wendy Craig was known for the dissatisfied housewife parts she played in several sitcoms, like And Mother Makes Three and Not in Front of the Children. In Butterflies Lane gave her a more rounded character, caught in the tension between the traditional role of the stay-at-home mother and the expectations created by feminism, while not wanting to surrender to middle age. Ria’s family also had their own problems, and her sons’ failure to find a job mirrored the experience of many young people at the time.

Butterflies ran until 1983, though Ria and Leonard never gave in to the promised affair. The cast reunited for a Children in Need special in 2000. Lane went on to create Bread, another classic sitcom. Nicholas Lyndhurst became Rodney in Only Fools and Horses. The template Lane crafted in Butterflies can be seen in family sitcoms 2 Point 4 Children and My Family.