Boys From The Blackstuff

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Durham Toffee

Durham Toffee

Shameless Wool
Never got chance to watch this the first time it was broadcast - seeing as though I wasn't even a twinkle in my father's eye back in 1982. Recently, I've been bang into the 1980's though as I reckon it must be some kind of aching nostalgia thing...

Anyway, I thought I'd give this series a watch and found the full set on YouTube. I am absolutely stunned by it; cracking work. It's a little terrifying how much it echoes with the sentiments of today however, and how we can make the same mistakes and fall down the same holes yet again. Obviously, the economy and unemployment is not even comparable, but the crushing feelings about helplessness, etc really seem pertinent.

It really deserved to be very highly acclaimed. The sheer power of the depiction of the desperation that festers in working guys through high unemployment is really quite emotional - the lack of governmental support is tragic and provokes a lot of anger in me. To see that mirrored now, even to a lesser extent, is quite saddening.

I know I am probably preaching to the choir here; many of you will have seen this series during its actual broadcast (you old set of beggars) and no doubt you had an even greater emotional bond with it than I do now. I simply wanted to make note of it and see what others thought.

Was it a fair representation of 80's Liverpool and the struggles of working class guys? Was it over-egged?

I find the political edge to a lot of the dialogue to be wonderfully biting and inspiring at times, but was that the overarching feeling of the working man in the day?

I've only watched the first two episodes, by the way. I'm watching the others tonight. Found the first to be the more pertinent for me - evoked memories of my father when I was a small child...
 

Was it over egged? For dramatic effect I guess at times. (The classic scene where the lad builds a rubbish wall for example). But in terms of the alienation many felt, and not just in Liverpool, but all over the UK, was a pretty accurate reflection of how many sections of society felt at that time.
 
It was fairly accurate, memory serves that it didn't display the organised fight against Thatcher's policies that well, but the personal stories were well done.

I watched it again a year or so again and the city has changed immeasurably. Some of a certain ilk will always say for the better, but as you highlight, that is just window dressing, the same problems are still there, only more cynically played out. UB40s were a simpler system, now, regardless of the 'benefit scrounging' headline grabbing, people who have paid into the system struggle to justify a claim from the safety net that benefits are supposed to be. The system tries at every stage to kick them out of any entitlement.

We have food banks even for those who work.

it's a long sorry road from the 80's to here, but it is just the same system played out with different characters and different scenery
 


Get the DVD BBC 1178 3 Disc set, Includes the original Play for Today as well as the complete BBC TV series, with commentary by Alan Bleasdale
& director Jim Goddard
 
I remember watching the original 1½ hour 'The Blackstuff Play' for Today when it was first broadcast in January 1980 (so I found out here), when I was 15, in Glasgow. It was the first piece of television that I found really powerful.

I then watched the subsequent 1 hour long episodes of the series 'Boys from the Blackstuff', which came out in 1982. The episode with Michael Angelis & Julie Walters (who I believe was in the Everyman Repertory at the time) was particularly powerful.

Little did I know that I'd move to Liverpool 5 years later, for my first job outa Uni.

Still here - love the place I call home now.
 
BlueAde said:
I then watched the subsequent 1 hour long episodes of the series 'Boys from the Blackstuff', which came out in 1982. The episode with Michael Angelis & Julie Walters (who I believe was in the Everyman Repertory at the time) was particularly powerful.
Click to expand...
yeah, shoots the kid's rabbit or duck or something although I thought Yosser's story was the hardest hitting,

the writing outdone the acting for me though, with the exception of Bernard Hill
 

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