"The Spongers" was written by Jim Allen, directed by Roland Joffé, produced by Tony Garnett, and starred Christine Hargreaves, Bernard Hill, Peter Kerrigan, and Paula McDonagh.

Set against the backdrop of Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, the play depicts a single mother's struggles as welfare cuts affect the poor and disabled.

Pauline (Christine Hargreaves), a recently separated single mother-of-four, receives a visit from a bailiff regarding her rent arrears.

Community action worker Sullivan (Bernard Hill) drives Pauline and Paula past the preparations for the Jubilee on the way to a dedicated home for special needs children.

As Paula and other children happily re-enact the Queen's coronation at her care home, the council agree to cut these services.

Inspired, Mrs Johnson then raises Paula's case with her boss, but he blames her inexperience and accuses her of becoming too emotionally involved.

Taking heed of her boss's suggestion, she is absent at independent hearing for Pauline's appeal against the exceptional needs refusal.

He points out that it is only recently that Pauline has needed help, and as a survivor of 1930s poverty, he did not believe Britain would return to similar circumstances after 1945.

Upholding the decision, the chair believes husbands leave families just to get their debts covered by supplementary benefit, and wants to discourage them.

Pauline, helped by Sullivan, decides to see the Director of Social Services at her local council about Paula's case.

Sullivan aggressively denies Conway's claim that Paula's transfer was in the child's interest: he thinks councils target the mentally handicapped for cuts because they cannot fight back.

The play originally came about during a discussion between Tony Garnett and Jim Allen about the withdrawal of mentally handicapped children from a home in Salford, and looking into the relationship between care provisions and local government.

Christine Hargreaves, who plays Pauline, spent some time living with her on-screen children to develop a bond that "would appear second-nature" on screen.

Nevertheless, Allen replied with a brief outline of how he works as a writer: "Just for the record, it isn’t true that I only write down ideas then allow actors to ad lib.

Some like Roland Joffé with The Spongers and United Kingdom perhaps go a bit to [sic] far, but Ken Loach, with whom I’ve made six films, first allows the actor to speak the lines – and then ad lib.

The ensemble playing is brilliantly done, with interruptions and improvised stutters giving a documentary feel that, while grossly overused (even misused) these days, is wholly convincing here.

"[7] TV Writer Jimmy McGovern describes the play as "the best television programme ever made", and cites Jim Allen as his biggest influence.

"[9] Jim Allen planned a two-part follow up to "The Spongers", titled The Commune, which was to be set in the same location – Middleton, Greater Manchester, on the impoverished Langley Estate.

The drama was to provide a more hopeful outlook for the community than Pauline's story, and would feature residents taking control of running the estate from the local authorities.

[7] However, Jim Allen and Kenith Trodd did make a similar story to The Commune, titled "United Kingdom", which was also directed by Roland Joffé and was shown in the Play for Today strand on BBC1.

Andy Willis, of BFI Screenonline, describes "United Kingdom" as "one of the last hurrahs of the strain of committed political drama that had thrived, particularly at the BBC, during the 1960s and 1970s.

Ambitious in both scope and length and fiercely anti-government – though its early drafts were written before the 1979 Conservative election victory – it represented the kind of drama that BBC managers would find difficult to defend in the face of constrained budgets and political pressure.