Budgie (TV series)

Budgie
Iain Cuthbertson (left) and Adam Faith (right) in ITV television series Budgie
Created by	Keith Waterhouse Willis Hall
Starring	Adam Faith Ian Cuthbertson Lynn Dalby
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	26
Production
Running time	50 mins.
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	9 April 1971 – 14 July 1972
Chronology
Related shows	Charles Endell Esq.

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

The series was created by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall. The show was produced by Verity Lambert, Rex Firkin was the Executive producer. The show had two theme songs- the first was "The Loner" by The Milton Hunter Orchestra, and the later theme was "Nobody's Fool" written by Ray Davies and performed by Cold Turkey.

Each episode was a complete story, usually depicting Budgie's involvement in some harebrained scheme to make money, usually somewhere on the wrong side of legality. However he was continually the victim of circumstance, or of the sharper, more experienced underworld operators he tried to emulate.

Plots included:

Eventually all his "friends" desert him and he winds up back in jail, ironically for something he had nothing to do with.

Series two begins with Budgie being released from the "open nick" and staying with his wife for a few days. 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, also from the same Open prison force Budgie to move back in with his girlfriend and his son, Howard, who is now 2 years old. Budgie carried on pretty 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 - Hazel - becoming pregnant by Budgie, and the fact 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 and nothing more was heard of Budgie.

The title role, a chirpy cockney petty criminal newly out of prison, was played by former pop singer Adam Faith and was his first starring role for television. His name in the series was Ronald 'Budgie' Bird, after the budgerigar birds sometimes kept as pets in England, and generally known in the USA as parakeets.