Review: Boys From the Blackstuff - a powerful play for today from the 1980s

Review: Boys From the Blackstuff - a powerful play for today from the 1980s

WITH corrugated iron walls, two towering cranes and images of water gently lapping on a giant screen at the rear of the set, along with the 80s…

Boys From the Blackstuff – Leeds Grand - North West End UK

‘Gizza a job. Go on, gizza job. I can do that.’ That desolate plea for help from a broken Yosser Hughes helped make Boys From the Blackstuff one of a series of epochal TV series that marked out the newly created Channel 4 as the nation’s social conscience as our industrial heartlands were decimated by Thatcherism. Scouser Alan Bleasdale used all five episodes of his 1982 BAFTA winning masterpiece to follow a bunch of unemployed former asphalt la…

Boys from the Blackstuff Review - Fairy Powered Productions

Leeds Grand Theatre – until Saturday 17 May 2025 Reviewed by Sal Marino 5***** James Graham’s stage adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s 1982 television series Boys from the Blackstuff, directed by Kate Wasserberg,  authentically  portrays working-class life in 1980s Liverpool. This brilliant production effectively captures the original’s moving depth and relevance. Graham’s adaptation weaves together the narratives of the main central characters—Yos…