Boys from the Blackstuff

This play (originally broadcast as one of the Play For Today series) concerned the story of a group of Liverpudlian tarmac layers (slang: the 'black stuff' of the title meaning 'tarmacadam'). The group are assigned a job laying tarmac on a housing development in Middlesbrough, with their hotel and meals being paid for. However, ambition and greed drives four of the six men to doing a 'foreigner': a job 'on the sly' behind their supervisor's back, laying fresh tarmac for a farmer. However, this turns out to be a catastrophic disaster, after their life's savings are drained on it but end up being swindled by two Irish gypsies. The mental anguish of the four is seen, but they and the others from the collective group are sacked by the project manager.

Shown in 1981 as a standalone between the initial drama and the subsequent series, it centres on Danny Duggan played by Peter Postlethwaite, the building boss who employs people cheaply by being complicit in the social security fraud of his employees and therefore guilty of a crime himself.

Bernard Hill remembers Boys from the Blackstuff, Alan Bleasdale’s iconic drama, which is being shown again as part of the BBC’s Centenary celebrations, and which was once described as ‘TV’s most complete dramatic response to the Thatcher era’. Hill’s performance as Yosser Hughes, with his ‘Gizza job’ catchphrase, captured the public’s imagination in a way that few roles have since. Here he looks back on how he got the part, why it struck such a chord, and what audiences should take from ‘Blackstuff’ today.