After a break of 15 years we return to Chigwell for the further adventures of Tracey, Sharon and Dorien, stars of this unashamedly old-school sitcom. It's like they've never been away, with Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph scarcely missing a beat as they slip into their old roles, though there's a bit of plot jiggery pokery required to get them back under the same roof. Dorien, for one, has been busy researching erotic corker Sixty Shades Of Green...

It's been 15 years since Tracey, Sharon and Dorien graced our screens in what was, back in the day, a rare example of a female-centred sitcom. Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph return, a little older but just as sharp, with each of them slipping easily into their old role as if it was a comfortable dressing gown.

Mouthy Sharon's living in an Edmonton tower block and is clearly down on her luck, her older sister Tracey's still living in Chigwell with son Travis (played by Pauline Quirke's real-life son Charlie), while man-eating Dorien has repackaged herself as Foxy Cohen, author of the sex blockbuster Sixty Shades of Green.

This episode reunites the trio and introduces us to Tracey's other son, Garth, who's played by Busted's Matt Willis. While the humour is hardly cutting edge, it will make a lot of people smile.

Review: The girls' return is surprisngly fun

OK, it's not going to change the face of comedy or rock many boats, but it packed in the cheesy groan-inducing gags and Pauline Quirke almost single-handedly carried the half-hour with her natural warmth and funny bones.

Birds of a Feather review

OK, it's not going to change the face of comedy or rock many boats, but it packed in the cheesy groan-inducing gags and Pauline Quirke almost single-handedly carried the half-hour with her natural warmth and funny bones.

Birds Of A Feather, which began in 1989, has been away from our screens for 15 years. The trio of smashing actresses who carry the show - Linda Robson, Pauline Quirke and Lesley Joseph - must have been preserved in aspic, because none of them looks any older than they did in the Nineties.

The big change here is that Birds was always a BBC comedy. After the sitcom's West End stage success, writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran approached the corporation and were told, implausibly, that Auntie's policy is never to do revivals.

That makes little sense, when you consider that the BBC's most popular drama, Doctor Who, lay dormant for more than a decade before being revived.

Anyway, it's the Beeb's loss, because Birds was as funny and edgy as ever. Sex-mad Dorian had reinvented herself as an erotic author called Foxey Cohen, Tracy was a single mum again and Sharon was still boiling with working-class indignation.

'Mr Cameron says we're all in this together,' she grumbled, 'so how come I never bump into him down by the bins?'

The Birds are back!

15 years on, Linda Robson, Pauline Quirke and Lesley Joseph reveal why the time is ripe for a revival.

The first series of this domestic sitcom set in the Manchester suburbs was too cosy and MOR for its own good but at least this second series feels better placed in its new home on Sky Living. All the regulars are back, including chirpy Lisa (Sally Lindsay), and her overbearing parents, played by Pauline Quirke and Bobby Ball.

Birds of a Feather to flock together in stage version

Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph are bringing the TV series that last aired almost 14 years ago to the theatre.

Tearful live TV reunion for Robson and Quirke

They've not been together on screen for more than a decade. So it was a tearful reunion for Linda Robson and Pauline Quirke today as the Birds of a Feather stars came together again on TV.