Boys from the Blackstuff
Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool
 

IN MY hallway hangs a portrait of Yosser Hughes, key player in the iconic 1980s TV series Boys from the Blackstuff, Liverpool playwright Alan Bleasdale’s warm, witty but ultimately tragic look at the way economics and lack of social support affects ordinary people.

Forty years later, in collaboration with writer James Graham, the blackstuff  boys Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser are back on stage in their hometown, Liverpool, retelling their story.

The script is richly Scouse – comical but passionate, boisterous, deeply moving. The stage set, created by audio visual designer Jamie Jenkin, beautifully evokes Liverpool’s seafaring and trading history — shimmering skyscapes, dockland cranes, recognisable buildings.

This was the decade when Thatcher contemplated shutting Liverpool down. Collapse of the South Docks plus factory closures resulted in the highest unemployment levels in the UK.

As someone who lived in the city during that barbaric decade, the Blackstuff Boys became symbolic victims of state brutality, a capitalist system where profit took precedence over people.

Formerly employed in road surfacing work, actually laying down the blackstuff, what the Boys really wanted was regular work, the means of providing for their families and contributing to society as a whole.

“Gizza job. I can do that.”

In reality, employers withdrew from creating real jobs and became leading players in the so-called purple economy where workers did one-off random projects and were paid in cash as back handers, something for which the Blackstuff Boys were woefully ill-equipped.

Yet officials from the Department of Employment were constantly checking up and investigating “the scroungers,” threatening, or actually withdrawing unemployment benefits to ‘keep them on their toes’ while turning a complete blind eye to the underhanded activities of the bosses.

The Boys stay united, singing meaningful songs with lines like “we’re on the road to God knows where” interspersed with outbursts of anger applied via Glasgow kisses (head butting)!!

We witness the effects of unemployment on both themselves and their families trapped in poverty — mental breakdown, dreams shattered, lives destroyed.

Yosser is advised to seek help, social support. He visits the two cathedrals, walking along the road that links them, ironically called Hope Street — a priest says to him, “don’t call me father, I’m Dan,” to which Yosser replies, “I’m desperate Dan.”  

Yet all the church can do is to offer him the prospect of a possible afterlife, not an improvement in life itself.

Watching this reconstructed drama, Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s doesn’t feel like past history. Pain, rage, poverty, deprivation, economic chaos, lack of social support, have all returned.

Back then, the root cause was unemployment. Today, thanks to low wages, high costs, lax employment laws like zero-hour contracts, millions of people work long hours in paid employment but still cannot afford food, rent, heating, the basics of a decent life.

When the show ended, the audience, having clearly identified with messages coming from the storyline, cheered tumultuously, gave the outstanding cast a prolonged and standing ovation.

This is an unmissable piece of theatre and the tickets are affordable. Make the journey to Liverpool – see the play – you won’t be disappointed.

Until October 28. Box office: (0151) 709-4321,  https://liverpoolsroyalcourt.com/whats-on/