First viewed : 30 July 1981
This Alan Bleasdale classic was a great tonic after Charles and Di the day before. Originally broadcast 18 months earlier on BBC2 , this was its last showing which is strange given how often Boys From The Black Stuff has been repeated. You don't need to have seen this to make sense of the stories in BFTBS but it certainly helps to know how the characters are connected and what originally pushed Yosser Hughes over the edge. It also tells you a lot more about Kevin Dean who was relegated to a fairly minor character in the series.
The play concerns a Liverpudlian tar gang who go to Middlesbrough to work on a new housing estate . Harrassed foreman Dixie ( Tom Georgeson ) has to deal with an over-fussy clerk of works ( Edward Peel ) , son Kevin ( Gary Bleasdale ) trying to get his end away at every opportunity and his gang slipping off to do a foreigner the minute his back is turned. The gang comprise Yosser ( Bernard Hill ) an alpha male convinced he is special, George ( Peter Kerrigan ) an older man who's coming to the end of his usefulness and two easy going likely lads , Chrissie ( Michael Angelis ) and Loggo ( Alan Igbon ). They are approached by a couple of gypsies to do somebody's drive instead which leads to them ( and Dixie for losing control ) being fired. They do the job but are then ripped off themselves by the tinkers who get away with the cash after a memorable van chase. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed by a dramatic outcome as when Yosser fails to catch up with them and rip them apart. His crazed rant at Chrissie's fatalistic acceptance of the situation sets up his story in the subsequent series.
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