Timeshift Series 12 Episode 8

In 2013, the BBC Documentary series Timeshift did an episode on one of Britain’s most popular leisure pursuits: bingo.

The programme covered how high street bingo came about almost by accident, thanks to a loophole in an obscure piece of gambling legislation. Almost overnight, in January 1961, what had been a quiet parlour game or occasional seaside flutter became a brash multimillion-pound business.

Narrated by Sarah Lancashire (Coronation Street, Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax), the show covers how, soon after legislation, nearly a quarter of the population were playing and becoming fluent in the rhyming slang of ‘bingo lingo’ – from ‘Legs Eleven’ to ‘Clickety Click, Sixty Six’. This explosion of interest quickly led to a moral panic about the dangers of easy prize money. Still, bingo was defiantly here to stay – and not just as the preserve of older women, as today’s mega-halls full of hen night parties show.

With interviews with industry stalwarts like Gaming Impresario Jimmy Thomas and Paddy Cronin, MD of Edward Thompson Printers (at their peak as the world’s biggest bingo-ticket printers), as well as leading academics: Prof. Carolyn Downs, Prof. Keith Laybourn, and Prof. Rachael Dixey.