After the television showing the Guardian declared "Cathy Come Home makes 'Up the Junction' look like a Sunday School treat (Jeremy Sandford's wife was Nell Dunn, author on 'Up the Junction').
"Cathy Come Home" is a 1966 BBC television play about homelessness. It was written by Jeremy Sandford, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. A 1998 Radio Times readers' poll voted it the "best single television drama" and a 2000 industry poll rated it as the second-best British television programme ever made. Filmed in a gritty, realistic drama documentary style, it was first broadcast on 16 November 1966 on BBC1. The play was shown in the BBC's The Wednesday Play anthology strand, which often tackled social issues.
One commentator called it "an ice-pick in the brain of all who saw it". The play produced a storm of phone calls to the BBC, and discussion in Parliament. For years afterwards Carol White was stopped in the street by people pressing money into her hand, convinced she must be actually homeless.[