BBC4 will be showing Alan Bleasdale's Liverpool-set 1980's series Boys from the Blackstuff starting Wednesday July 6th. It's an important anniversary of the work -but why and how did Liverpool theatre, film and TV become an almost institutionalised lingua franca for British working class expression and struggle from the 1980s on? What is it about the culture of that city that made it such a working class touchstone? Neil Cooper looks into the Merseyside context of Bleasdale's writing and gives us a fully researched and detailed examination of the history and legacy of the great work done.
JOBS FOR THE BOYS:
‘Boys from the Blackstuff’ 40 years on
Neil Cooper