Boys From The Blackstuff – The Lowry, Salford

Writer: James Graham

Director: Kate Wasserberg

“This is going to sound pretentious” says James Graham, the writer picking up the Blackstuff mantle for the stage, “but Alan is one of great dramatists in the same way Arthur Miller was an American epic writer”. Most people who remember Boys From the Blackstuff hitting our TV screens in 1982 would probably agree. Alan Bleasdale’s BBC series made him a household name and his hard-hitting and timely drama was some of the most talked about TV of the late twentieth century.

So James Graham and Director Kate Wasserberg have big shoes to fill. After all, you don’t mess with Yosser Hughes. Thankfully, Bleasdale’s trust in Graham and Wasserberg pays off. They’ve created a brilliantly crafted play that retains all the bleakness, sentiment and richness of the original series but brings a lyrical theatricality to it that gives it a stand-alone originality.

Amy Jane Cook’s stunningly evocative backdrop combines hefty cranes against projections of the ever-present cold dark Mersey. This is the Liverpool docks at a time when it no longer had a purpose. When its place in international trading was gone and its future as a sparklingly modern tourist attraction was unimaginable. When “unemployment was the only growing industry”. A time when lives were crushingly hard and Scousers didn’t know what to do with their enduring sense of civic pride. Bleasdale’s memorable characters came from the reality of the dole queue, the men who thought they’d never work again and who didn’t know what else they were supposed to do. Boys From The Blackstuff exposes the often tragic failings of the welfare state as it began to crumble, but also the humiliation felt by a generation and class whose whole identity was based on hard work and providing for their families.

Wasserberg’s cast embodies this sense of loss with exquisite pathos. Ged McKenna’s George, part of an older generation than the others, sees not only his own future but that of the younger men being eroded, a generation “betrayed”. Both his pride and his physical decline are heartbreaking. Amber Blease’s Angie embodies the fight put up by the women who, having seen their own work disappear, had the job of supporting their men through the loss. And while this is very much an ensemble piece of theatre, Jay Johnson’s Yosser Hughes is a devastating portrayal of a man who has lost the respect of his workmates, his wife, and increasingly himself to the point where he just can’t take any more. Johnson’s performance is frightening, complex and mesmerising.

Wasserberg’s take on Boys From The Blackstuff cleverly recognises that TV drama like this doesn’t translate well to the stage easily and adds a well-judged layer of physical theatricality that doesn’t detract from Graham’s sharply direct and well-observed script. She adds a few moments of song that sit comfortably, evoking traditional work and sea songs.

This is a play grounded in Liverpool, where the city takes on a character of its own. A city synonymous with hard graft, with the sea, with industry. It speaks of its complicated relationship with religion and with its hard-edged humour. But it also speaks of universal things, of what happens when people lose their purpose, of how communities can support each other but sometimes fail to. Boys From The Blackstuff is still, over forty years on, a depressingly relevant tale for our times.

Runs until 26 April 2025