Butterflies (TV series)

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Butterflies
Series title card
Format	Sitcom
Starring	Wendy Craig Geoffrey Palmer Nicholas Lyndhurst Andrew Hall Bruce Montague Michael Ripper Joyce Windsor
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	30 (including 2 shorts)
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC2, BBC1
Original run	1978 – 1983, 2000

Butterflies was a situation comedy written by Carla Lane mainly shown on BBC2 between 1978 and 1983. All the cast apart from Michael Ripper, who had recently died, reunited for a 13-minute episode in aid of Children in Need in November 2000.

The cast was a strong point of the programme. Wendy Craig played frustrated housewife Ria Parkinson, Geoffrey Palmer played her phlegmatic husband, Ben. Their youngest son, Adam, was played by Nicholas Lyndhurst and their older son, Russell, was played by Andrew Hall.

Wendy Craig and Geoffrey Palmer in Butterflies

The situation is one of the day-to-day life of the Parkinson family in the bitter-sweet style the writer has made her hallmark. The comedy came from both traditional situation comedy sources (Ria's cooking, family squabbles) and more unusual places such as Ria's unconsummated love affair with her soulmate, the rich Leonard, played by Bruce Montague.

The Butterflies theme song, "Love Is Like A Butterfly", was written and originally recorded by American country and western music artist Dolly Parton. The version used at the opening of each episode was recorded specially for the series by Clare Torry, with a band conducted by the BBC's well-known TV composer Ronnie Hazlehurst. An American remake was piloted but never commissioned. It was broadcast in August 1979 on NBC with little change to the original scripting, which did not help it to attract an American audience accustomed to broader humour.

Many of the exterior scenes were filmed in Cheltenham including the High Street, Montpellier and Hatherley Park. The Parkinson house is situated on Bournside Road in Up Hatherley, Cheltenham.

Butterflies - the title of which comes from the character Ben's lepidoptery hobby - is also said by many^[who?] to be the inspiration behind another BBC sitcom, My Family, in which the mother of the family is a bad cook and the father is a dentist named Ben. There is no counterpart to Leonard, however.