There haven’t been many better bits of telly than the five episodes that make up Boys from the Blackstuff, the seminal series by Alan Bleasdale about a group of tarmac layers in Liverpool in 1982, each cracking under the pressures of unemployment. It started life as a BBC Play for Today before widening out into a series that was bleak and hard-hitting, but also funny and surreal, slow and lyrical, and absolutely gripping.
Forty years later, it has become a stage adaptation. This one has the good fortune of James Graham, the UK’s political playwright par excellence, handling the precious goods, and when it opened at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre last year strong reviews followed in its wake. Now it’s on the Southbank (before a West End run), and perhaps landing more softly than it did on the streets where it’s set.
