The Losers, 1978
Leonard Rossiter was riding high on the back of two hugely successful sitcoms: The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin and of course Rising Damp.
Unfortunately ‘The Losers’ did not match up to the other two sucesses. It ran for just six episodes in 1978.
Summary
After an extended run of bad luck, wrestling manager Sydney Foskett hits upon an an unorthodox way to improve his fortunes: hire a fall guy to lose deliberately and make money from bribes!
Foskett discovers a young new wrestler and part-time footballer, “The Butcher”, whose real name is Nigel.
Realising that the public love a loser, Foskett devises ways for “The Butcher” to lose without the young wrestler realising what is going on.
Clip
Cast
Leonard Rossiter – Sydney Foskett
Alfred Molina – Nigel
Joe Gladwin – Dennis Breene
Details
Channel: ITV
Written By: Alan Coren
Original Transmission Dates: 12th November – 17th December 1978
Archives and DVD
All six episodes were wiped. However off air recordings of episodes 1 – 5 were found on to have survived as poor quality off-air domestic video recordings. However Network On Air digitally recovered these recordings and released them to DVD. Episode six is still missing and sadly Network On Air have closed.
Where To Watch
At the time of this post (March 2024) the surviving episodes are streaming on You Tube