Boys from the Blackstuff: Review

Gizza Job. Welcome to the gig economy. The game may have changed but the rules of a capitalist society remain the same: for the powerful to thrive, the working class must be oppressed. Zero hours contracts usually involve working for companies who contribute no tax, give obscene bonuses to their mollycoddled CEO’s, and then pay their employees the bare miserable minimum. It’s all about survival. This partly explains why Boys from the Blackstuff has endured; a monument to decimated Northern communities, and the end of nationalised industries. 

It’s perhaps less well known that Alan Bleasdale’s greatest dramatic achievement was spun off from The Blackstuff, a one off drama, screened during Christmas 1980. Whilst the latter was larky in tone, the subsequent five episode series (first screened in October 1982) was angry and pessimistic, shot through with gallows humour. Less a regular drama, more like a hand grenade lobbed into the living room. 

For years, Alan Bleasdale resisted requests from the Liverpool Royal Court to adapt the series for the stage, believing it would be technically impossible, and also beyond his abilities. The deadlock was broken when director Kate Wasserberg wrote Bleasdale a passionate, personal letter, and suggested writer James Graham (probably best known for the TV series Sherwood) would be a safe pair of hands.

For those unfamiliar with the original, it’s the story of five men – Chrissie, Loggo, Yosser, George and Dixie – whose lives are blighted by unemployment. ‘Unemployment is a growth industry’, quips DHSS snoop, Ms Sutcliffe (a droll Sian Polhill-Thomas). Not only are they battling economic strife, but wounded pride; working class men are taught at a young age that their value is entwined with the role of hunter/gatherer. 

Anyone who signed on in the 80’s might get a trauma flashback from this production; Amy Jane Cook’s complex set features a grim Orwellian ‘holding pen’ where the main  characters stand, and declare they haven’t been employed during the past fortnight. Not completely true of course because survival in Thatcher’s Britain invariably meant doing work on the sly. Here it’s a gig on a building site for a foreman not too fussed about health and safety regulations, leading to a tragedy which hangs over the survivors for the duration of the drama. 

How to compress 300 minutes of television into a two hour stage play? James Graham chooses the best bits from the original, and most of it gels together surprisingly well (Kate Wasserberg makes the dozens of scene changes as fluid as possible). Some dopy comedy bits – Yosser chasing a milk man and a lollipop lady, shouting ‘Gizza job’ – feel like a feeble Benny Hill spoof. Likewise, a slapstick through-the-letterbox conversation with a government inspector might have worked in Rentaghost, but looks oddly out of place here.  

Mark Womack is fantastic as Dixie, hitting exactly the right note of melancholy as a man who has no ideas left. ‘I wish I’d done better for you’, he says to his son in a scene which feels almost painfully archetypal. George Caple is a fine, heart on sleeve Chrissie (everyone says he’s too nice), whilst Jurell Carter is similarly impressive as Loggo, a character who has grown too cynical too soon but clings to a slender thread of hope (which informs his decision to leave Liverpool for pastures new). 

Yosser’s Story was the episode that hit hardest; the final image of Bernard Hill’s mentally deteriorating hard man being yanked out of a shopping centre fountain by a copper, something which seered itself into the pop culture psyche. A hard act to follow, and it’s fair to say Jay Johnson is slightly intimidated by the opportunity he’s been given. Most of the time he is great but some eager to please sentimentality creeps in during his vulnerable moments – an unnecessary distraction. All the requisite emotion is discharged in the penultimate scene, a slow motion battle with a bunch of coppers, well choreographed by Rachael Nanyonjo (the movement sections add a welcome colour to the palette of this production). 

It’s rare to see a stage play with a cast this big (I almost did a double take when 14 people appeared for the encore). Minor faults aside, Boys from the Blackstuff is a bold piece of theatre, and one which probably requires a second viewing to absorb all the details. Who knew a 40-year-old TV drama could still be so frighteningly relevant.  

Boys From the Blackstuff is at Lowry, Salford from 22 to 26 April 2025.