Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff – National Theatre, London

Writer: James Graham

Director: Kate Wasserberg

Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff is filled with hurt; so much hurt that even the expansive Olivier auditorium can barely contain it; so much hurt that presses down on you harder and harder until the experience of Chrissie, Loggo, Dixie, George and Yosser Hughes becomes almost unbearable to witness. James Graham’s astounding theatrical reworking of Bleasdale’s five-part television series transfers from Liverpool Royal Court to the National Theatre where it brings compassion and dignity to this tale of working-class colleagues pushed to the brink by unemployment and state-led destruction of their way of life.

Desperate for work in 1982, five former tarmac layers cross paths frequently at the Dole Office where they are met with routine suspicions and no job opportunities. When some cash-in-hand work at a building site leads to an investigation, everyone in this small Liverpool community is affected by the tightening restrictions, causing rifts between friends and within families that grind everybody down. With no hope in sight, violence, apathy and bitterness start to shape their outlook while the memory of better times haunts them all.

Boys from the Blackstuff is an important state-of-the-nation study of working-class masculinity, broken and defeated by forces beyond individual control, and in distilling Bleasdale’s original anthology series (and the original play it was based on), Graham has poignantly captured the deep fragility of its characters. It is relatively rare to see work that imbues working-class voices with the kind of emotional range and decency that the intersection of Bleasdale and Graham achieves here, fiercely arguing not only for the recognition of singular pain but also the deep meaning and value of communities whose livelihoods have been systematically eroded but want nothing more than to provide for their families, to matter and to be seen as Yosser so notably demands throughout the play.

The weaving together of these stories only increases the emotional impact of the show, drawing out the moral determination of Chrissie whose guilt only increases his determination not to take work at the expense of others, elder statesman George who symbolises the life that’s slipping away and Yosser whose comic desperation for a job becomes a deep-rented agony that cuts through his entire being. And Graham gives them a quiet nobility, these essentially good men drawn back together throughout the story for significant moments where the collegiate feeling for one another is briefly reignited; the loss of their camaraderie is one of Boys from the Blackstuff’s great tragedies.

Departing from Bleasdale’s original, this production draws a clearer understanding of the city itself, its history and the lingering pride that still shapes male behaviours. Dyfan Jones’ composition becomes an emotive storytelling device, the songs of the workers used to build their connection with the generations that have come before and, particularly, the importance of the docks in shaping an identity for Liverpool that is ebbing away. And typically for Graham’s plays, this one looks back and forward at the same time, celebrating the meaningful lives that have gone before but also, through the character of Loggo, wondering where the new stories are.

Kate Wasserberg’s production pushes the Olivier space back into a proscenium arch to accommodate additional seats and removes some of the grandeur of the amphitheatre space for Amy Jane Cook’s set made of brutalist rigging. Running at 2.5 hours, Wasserberg skillfully controls the flow as scenes move from the Dole Office to domestic homes and the very male spaces of pubs, construction sites and the docks, while managing the sometimes-rapid tonal shifts from comedy to searing sadness that build the pressure as the story unfolds.

This is a strong ensemble performance with actors playing multiple roles, but Barry Sloane’s star-making turn as Yosser Hughes is especially heart-rending, a character prone to violent outbursts that, in Sloane’s devastating performance, are deeply rooted in the powerlessness he feels. Philip Whitchurch is quietly affecting as George whose physical decline is symbolic of those wider forces affecting this community, while Mark Womack’s honourable Dixie and Nathan McMullen’s cornered Chrissie are equally touching. Helen Carter and Lauren O’Neil have much to play against but deliver some of the show’s comic high points with their Dole Office team among others.

Following both Standing at the Sky’s Edge and Till the Stars Come Down, these more nuanced representations of working-class life on National Theatre stages are hugely important and Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff is poetic and tragic, celebratory and honest about the state-of-the-nation forces that have been shaping ordinary lives in the last 40 years and just how much it still hurts.

Runs until 8 June and transfers to the Garrick Theatre from 13 June 2024