Boys from the Blackstuff

Boys from the Blackstuff

Boys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama series of five episodes, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, as a sequel to a television play titled The Black Stuff. The series was highly acclaimed for its powerful and emotional depiction of the desperation wrought by high unemployment and a subsequent lack of social support.

About Boys from the Blackstuff in brief

Summary Boys from the BlackstuffBoys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama series of five episodes, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, as a sequel to a television play titled The Black Stuff. The series was highly acclaimed for its powerful and emotional depiction of the desperation wrought by high unemployment and a subsequent lack of social support. In 1983 it won the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial, and in 2000 it was placed seventh in a British Film Institute poll of industry professionals on the best television programmes of the 20th century. It was also named as one of the forty greatest television shows in a 2003 list compiled by the Radio Times magazine’s chief television writer Alison Graham. In March 2007, Channel 4 broadcast a top 50 Dramas programme, based on input from industry professionals rather than the public, which had Boys From The Blackstuff at number two. The show was so successful upon its original broadcast that only nine weeks after it had finished transmission, it was re-shown on the higher-profile BBC1. The main characters Yosser Hughes, Chrissie Loggo, George, Doss, Kevin, and Kevin’s son, were introduced in it.

It follows the group as they undertake a casual job on a new housing development in Middlesbrough. Along the way at a motorway service station, the group encounter a female student who hitch-hikes a lift to Leeds. Part of the group are approached by two Irish gypsies, Brendan and Brendan, but are dropped off by the group. The episode was produced in 1978 but was not broadcast until 1980. The writer went on to write the scripts for The Monocled Mutineer and G. B. H. The Black Stuff was the original television play directed by Jim Goddard and is the precursor to the 1982 Boys from theBlackstuff series. The play was not transmitted until 2 January 1980. After filming however, the play was aired on BBC1’s Play for Today anthology series in 1978. It concerned a group of LiverpUDlian tarmac layers on a job near Middles brough. The character of Yossing Hughes was widely discussed. He was a man driven to the edge of his sanity by the loss of his job, his wife and the authorities’ continued attempts to take his children away from him.