Big Night at the Bingo - Our Lives

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Johnny Muir

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Our Lives: Series 4: Big Night at the Bingo

Big Night at the Bingo

Series 4

BBC One - Our Lives, Series 4, Big Night at the Bingo

Inside a bingo hall in the heart of West Belfast on one of its busiest nights of the year.

Our Lives goes inside a bingo hall in the heart of West Belfast, meeting some of the regulars who have known each other through thick and thin.

Bingo halls are a hidden world of mysterious rituals and unfamiliar jargon: singles, doubles, checks and sweating. They are also places of tight friendships, often spanning lifetimes, and the regulars have known each other through thick and thin.

Big Night at the Bingo takes us to the Westway bingo hall on the Falls Road in the heart of West Belfast for one of its busiest nights of the year, as the prize money is bumped up into four figures. While the world outside is a place of tough working lives and demanding family commitments, inside the Westway all is calm as the numbers are drawn at random for the captive audience. 

We meet the regular players who come back day after day in hope of that elusive win. Serenely composed Eilish was taught how to play by her granny when she was in her teens. Hard-working Margaret juggles her bingo alongside working in Asda, a college course, school pick-ups and supporting her husband as he deals with health problems. The irrepressible Kate says she never wins, so instead she prepares an impromptu birthday party for her friend. Eileen is long in the tooth and casts a cold eye on the numbers as they come up – she knows this is all a game of chance in which you can do nothing to affect the outcome. But tonight, among the hundreds of players squeezing into the hall, a lucky two will go home with £1,000 in cash.

Our Lives: Series 4

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