‘Boys from the Black Stuff’ was a drama series that showed on BBC2 in the early 1980’s for a short period. Even though it did not show for long the series really made a big impact, especially on the city in which it was based, the city of Liverpool.
Alan Bleasdale, a playwright from Liverpool wrote Boys from the Black Stuff as a sequel to a previous series he had wrote called ‘The Black Stuff’. Boys from the Black Stuff was completed in 1980 but did not hit the screens of the BBC until 1982.
With the acclaim that the series received from airing on BBC2 it was shown again within weeks on BBC1, the biggest of the BBC channels.
What is ‘Boys from the Black Stuff’?
The series follows five men who used to be tarmac layers but fell fowl of the recession in the early Eighties and became unemployed. Set in Liverpool the series had episodes that followed the life of each of these five friends with powerful emotion.
‘Boys from the Blackstuff’ gripped viewers by portraying the desperation and lack of support for those unemployed in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain at the time, especially those based in the North of England.
In the early 1980’s Liverpool, like many northern cities, saw many people unemployed and battling to find the money to live. It was this fact that made people easily associate with the plight of the five main characters in Boys from the Black Stuff.
The Characters in ‘Boys from the Black Stuff’
The five main characters were Yosser Hughes played by Bernard Hill, Chrissie Todd played by Michael Angelis, Loggo Logmond played by Alan Igbon, George Malone played by Peter Kerrigan and Dixie Dean played by Tom Georgeson.
The most famous of all the characters ended up being Yosser Hughes who became near insane from losing his job, suufering a divorce and constantly wrangling with the government authorities who kept trying to take his children into care.
For many it was Yosser Hughes’ catchphrases from the series that really struck a chord and ended up being in common use for those out of work. Yosser’s most famous catchphrase being “Gizza’ job”.
The Series
The series was only six episodes in length with each episode being roughly one hour and five minutes in length. The names of the six episodes were –
The Muscle Market
Jobs for the Boys
Moonlighter
Shop thy Neighbour
Yosser’s Story
George’s Last Ride
The first episode was actually shown separately to the other five as a standalone episode in 1981 about six months before the rest were shown in 1982.
For anyone who would really like to sample the quirky but true nature of the issues seen in the Liverpool area during the 1980’s then watching Boys from the Black Stuff is a must.
I recently re-watched the whole series again on DVD. The level of writing and intensity of the acting surpasses anything I have seen currently showing on the television.
I also invited a close friend to experience the ‘Boys from the Black Stuff’ with me. They had heard of the series, of course, but were truly surprised at the excellence of such a classic piece of television.
It struck me that for many the desperation of needing employment to be of value in the community may well be coming around again for some.
Having also spent some time unemployed in the last year I joined the queues in the, now called, Jobcentre Plus Office. There is a definite divide between those who have no concept of the emotions so perfectly portrayed in ‘Boys from the Black Stuff’ and who think that they should be getting more for doing nothing and those who remember the last time and never want to feel that way again.
‘Boys from the Black Stuff’ has not been shown on the television for a long time – would they really dare to broadcast it right now?
You can get a copy of the ‘Boys from the Black Stuff’ DVD from Amazon which includes all six episodes in one box.