It is well over 40 years since Alan Bleasdale wroteThe Black Stuff as a BBC Play for Today, first aired in 1980 though filmed earlier. That rapidly led to a five-part drama series, Boys from the Blackstuff, in which each episode concentrated on the story of one of this group of unemployed Scousers after their tarmac-laying enterprise had gone disastrously wrong in the original play. Its picture of their struggle on the dole at the beginning of the Thatcher era was hugely popular with viewers and won awards and a well-earned place in television history.
In his stage version, Graham has interwoven those stories in what is very much a piece of theatre and one which still seems tragically relevant. Unemployment may not be so high now, but making ends meet is a problem for many who live with similar pressures and frustrations.
Developed and staged by Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre, where the production premièred last year, Boys from the Blackstuff kicks off with a confrontation between labour exchange and unemployed. The blackstuff isn’t just the tar on the roads; these men have been working in the black economy, and officials are out there tracking down benefit cheats. One man falls to his death when they raid a building site.
Amy Jane Cook provides a set that conjures up the port of Liverpool, corrugated iron, great cranes and the waters of the Mersey, sometimes obscured by an explosion of blackness like the depression and dismay that come over its characters.
Director Kate Wasserberg incorporates choreographed movement, violence is stylised though no less vicious, there is some shanty-like singing but the emphasis is on these being real people and their humanity.
Nathan McMullen’s Chrissie struggles to stay true to his belief in class solidarity when tempted by offers that would mean he could support his family: he and Lauren O’Neil as his wife flare up in a fierce row when she can’t take the pressure. A compromised Dixie (Mark Womack), moonlighting as a security man on the docks, has to turn a blind eye to thieves or they will expose him. Loggo (Aron Julius) manages to stay more cheerful, but then he takes off to try his chances elsewhere. It is Yosser, whose wife has left him, devoted to children who are taken from him and desperate to do any job, who is hit hardest.
Yosser was memorably brought to life by the late Bernard Hill. Viewers took him to their hearts and his repeated cries of “Gizza job” and “I can do that!” became catchphrases. Barry Sloane won’t replace Hill in memory, but he gives a powerful performance of great sensitivity. Here is a proud man who can’t cope. In the early eighties, male mental health problems were not on the agenda but this is a perfect example: he is at the end of his tether and reacts with head-butting violence.
A sort of father figure to these men is Philip Whitchurch’s George. He is an older man, father of Snowy (George Coyle) who fell fatally; he can look back to what Liverpool used to be like and share past experience, a calmer viewpoint.
Painful though the situations are, Boys from the Blackstuff is not without humour. Jamie Peacock and Lauren O’Neill as the DofE investigators can’t help but be one source of amusement: we aren’t on their side—though she at least has a soft heart. When Helen Carter, as Dixie’s wife, hides for fear they will find out she has earned a few quid delivering leaflets, you can’t help smiling, though you feel for her. The quirks of personality lighten the telling, but this production is a serious picture of what unemployment can do to a person—the only time I think I laughed out loud was when, getting on first name terms, a priest invites Yosser to call him Dan. Yosser’s response of “I’m desperate Dan!” brought the house down without making it any the less tragic.
Boys from the Blackstuff has a very short run at the National Theatre but will transfer to the Garrick Theatre from 13 June to 3 August.