The Losers

The Losers is a British sitcom that aired on ITV in 1978. Written by Alan Coren,[1] it stars Leonard Rossiter and Alfred Molina. The Losers was made for ITV by ATV and was produced and directed by Joe McGrath.[2]

In The Losers, Rossiter plays Sydney Foskett, a wrestling promoter who discovers a young new wrestler called "The Butcher", played by Molina, who Foskett ensures loses to get the public's love.

Sydney Foskett is a wrestling promoter who discovers young new wrestler and part-time footballer, "The Butcher", whose real name is Nigel. Foskett, realising that the public love a loser, devises ways for "The Butcher" to lose without the dimwitted Nigel to know what is happening. Foskett often gets paid well for rigging the matches.[2]

The Losers aired on ITV from 12 November to 17 December 1978. All episodes aired on Sundays at 9.15pm and are 30 minutes long.[2] The broadcast masters for all six episodes were later wiped for reuse, though episodes one through five were later found to have survived as poor quality off-air domestic video recordings.[3] However the final episode, "Togetherness", is still missing from the archives and can be presumed lost.[4] The Times obituary of Alan Coren in 2007 said the series "sank with all hands".[1]

A region 2 DVD containing restored editions of the surviving episodes was released by Network on 21 January 2013[3]