Each episode was a complete story, usually depicting Budgie's involvement in some hare-brained scheme to make money, usually somewhere on the wrong side of legality, and invariably for the local boss, Mr Endell. He often failed in his aim, being continually the victim of circumstance or of the sharper, more experienced underworld operators he tried to emulate. The opening credits were particularly iconic: showing budgie trying to grab large numbers of banknotes blowing in the wind.
Series One
The story begins with Ronald Bird being released from Wormwood Scrubs prison and trying to find a living in whatever way possible. He meets Charlie Endell in a bar with a 15 year old stripper and asks Budgie to look after her for a week. He asks his part-time actress girlfriend Hazel Fletcher to help. In the one hour pilot he accidentally steals the wrong Ford Transit but this is beneficial as it is a police-owned van full of confiscated pornography heading for destruction. Budgie reckons he can sell it, however Mr Endell insists that he burns it all. The wind catches the paper and the pornography blows off the bonfire just as a busload of cricket players arrive. Budgie comes away with a fruit machine from the cricket club which he takes to Hazel's flat. They drive off but his assistant Grogan says he is going off with Charity. Budgie is left to explain this to Mr Endell. Plots included:
Trying to unload thousands of stolen ballpoint pens he has unwisely bought from one fence, paying too much in the process. He finds that the pens are all stamped with a logo, possibly "Her Majesty's Government", making them unsellable. Apparently these were the classic "trading commodity", the only object being to sell them to another sucker. Charlie offers to take them off Budgie's hands for next to nothing in exchange for a favour or two, and promptly unloads them to another villain.
Arranging a pornographic film show in a hotel and having assured the "punters" that the film was "the real Laurel and Hardy, if you know what I mean", making his escape before they find out the film really is a Laurel and Hardy movie.
Accidentally stealing a vanload of pornographic magazines from the police, and then having to destroy the evidence. The wind blows the pages from the bonfire Budgie and his pal have made and they blow all over a field where a prison wardens-versus-prisoners rugby match is imminently to be played.
Eventually all his supposed friends desert him; he ends up back in jail, ironically for something he had nothing to do with.
Series two
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, from the same open prison, force Budgie to move back in with his girlfriend and his son Howard, who is now two years old. Budgie carried on 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 becoming pregnant by Budgie, and 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; nothing more was heard of Budgie.
Cast
The title role, a chirpy cockneypetty criminal newly out of prison, was played by pop singer Adam Faith; it was his first starring role for television. The character's name was Ronald 'Budgie' Bird, nicknamed after the budgerigar birds sometimes kept as pets in England. The series co-starred Iain Cuthbertson as Charles Endell, a suave and Machiavellian Glaswegian gangster based in London, who employed Budgie, often against his own better judgement, or when he was in need of an unsuspecting fall guy. June Lewis played his silent wife Mrs Endell. During the late 1970s, Scottish Television produced a short-lived spin-off series, Charles Endell Esquire. The only other regular member of the cast was Lynn Dalby as Budgie's girlfriend, Hazel Fletcher. Stella Tanner had a semi-regular role as her mother, Mrs Fletcher. Rio Fanning appeared three times as Budgie's gullible criminal Irish pal, Grogan. Guest stars included Georgina Hale as Budgie's wife Jean, George Tovey as his father, Jack Bird, and Adrienne Posta as a stripper. John Rhys-Davies had an early semi-regular role as a corpulent gangster working for Endell, with the name of Laughing Spam Fritter.
Production
Two series, each of 13 episodes, were made. Although colour equipment had been introduced two years earlier, the first four episodes were made in monochrome because of industrial action. A further series may have been planned for 1973, although this coincided with Adam Faith being seriously injured in a car crash, and announcing his retirement from acting as a result. Despite a full recovery by Faith and his eventual return to acting, a further series was never commissioned.
