In March 1977, BBC One screened Spend, Spend, Spend, a single drama about a woman whose husband won the pools, a weekly competition to guess football scores. This week, Channel 5 will show Big Winners, a one-off play about the national lottery turning a couple into multimillionaires.
The parallel, intentional or not, is appropriate. Jack Rosenthal’s Spend, Spend, Spend, which won a Bafta, was one of the standout successes of Play for Today, the prime-time drama strand that ran on the BBC’s main channel from 1970 to 1984. Big Winners, written by Martha Watson Allpress, is included in 5’s four-play revival of the Play for Today franchise.
