BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF | THEATRE ROYAL, GLASGOW
★★★★★
‘Memories last longer than dreams, but dreams bring you hope…’
How do you transfer a ground-breaking Eighties’ TV series to the stage without losing the immediacy, tragedy and anger of its initial impact? Just ask the creatives of the Royal Court, Liverpool, their touring production of Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff does just that.
The story of five Liverpool labourers, Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser, all working on the side while signing on the dole, stole the nation’s hearts when it was first broadcast. Described as, ‘A tender, tragic portrait of life on Merseyside in the Thatcher era’, it was repeated just nine weeks after its original broadcast on BBC 1 by popular demand. Each episode featured the story of a different one of the gang, a structure replicated in James Graham’s emotionally engaging stage adaption which, with Kate Wasserberg’s empathetic direction, is a fast-paced piece that zips from scene to scene, working in songs and stylised movement that help drive the narrative along the way.
It’s 1982, three years into Thatcher’s first term as Prime Minister, and full-time jobs are hard to come, industrial unrest is high and the penalties for getting caught by the Department of Employment investigators, who skulk behind every crate and around every corner are severe… and so begins a game of cat and mouse with tragic consequences.
If Amy Jane Cook’s industrial set design, all corrugated iron, rusty girders, and swinging cranes perfectly captures the stark desolation of a period that saw unemployment hit the three million for the first time, so to do the performances, none more so than Jay Johnson, who steps into the iconic role of Yosser (I can do that! Gie’s a job) Hughes, bringing to it every ounce of passion, fear and anger his TV counterpart, the late Bernard Hill did.
Johnson’s brooding creation overshadows proceedings whenever on stage, but while his violence is always on a hair trigger, he’s also funny, tragic and ultimately lost. It’s a blistering portrayal of a man broken and beyond despair.
He’s well supported across the 14 strong cast, but then, Bleasdale’s characters are so intricately observed and James Graham’s adaptation so deftly crafted, that they provide the cast with the perfect tools to do the job. From Jurell Carter’s Loggo, a voice of reason, to Mark Womack’s outlier Dixie, Ged McKenna’s compassionate, working-class philosopher George, to George Caple’s gentle, principled Chrissie, each carry the hopes, confusion and fear familiar to so many of a generation powerless to stop their livelihood being ripped away.
Sian Polhill-Thomas is also impressive as Mrs Sutcliffe, head of the Department of Employment investigation team, and Sean Kingsley too, puts in a full shift as building contractor Malloy, and countless other disparate characters, including the dreaded Shake Hands.
Even after 43 years, Boys FromThe Blackstuff remains a visceral piece of political and social commentary, an indictment of the human cost to and injustice endured by so many communities. As such this is a production that should make you angry, whether you lived through those now far off days or are discovering them for the first time as a chapter of history that continues to carry a message for today. Brilliant theatre.
Tickets and tour dates here.
