The Boys from The Blackstuff (UKTV Play)

[Santa C]

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I know it's old but it's brilliant

A tear always comes to my eye with the sad demise of Snowy...

RIP Comrade



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[GoogaMooga]

I only saw it once, many years ago on Danish TV. But I remember it vividly. The Brits really knew how to make a good and relevant teleplay. Just think of "Cathy Come Home" or "The Naked Civil Servant". Really good stuff that could compete with the best of cinema.

I haven't seen Bernard Hill in much, probably only his role as the unemployed Yosser Hughes in Alan Bleasdale's 1982 BBC series "Boys From the Blackstuff".

That role helped him launch a film career in which he got roles in modern blockbuster rubbish like "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings". Okay, so I'll cop to having seen "Titanic" back in 1997, but I don't remember him in that film at all.

And I most certainly never went to the trouble of sitting through Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, nor do I ever have the slightest desire to try. It's supposed to be a hard slog and the evidence is in all the DVD's that clutter up the thrift shops, so no thanks.

No, the one thing I do remember Bernard Hill for and which left an indelible mark on me, is the aforementioned role of the desperately unemployed Yosser Hughes, who just can't seem to find a job in Thatcher's Britain in the 1980s.

His catchphrase "“Gizza job. Go on, gizza job. I can do that.” became part of the English language for a while there. It has been said that "it's grim up North", and that certainly rang true of Liverpool, where the character Yosser Hughes is supposed to come from.

By the time the series came out in 1982 unemployment in Britain had risen to over three million. And nowhere was this felt harder than in the North, in particular Liverpool.

[Santa C]

and Snowy






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[ChrisB]

One of the greatest dramas ever written. Heartbreaking, laugh out loud, thought provoking, even more powerful because it was REAL

Bleasdale's use of black humour is also apparent in a scene in which a distraught Yosser and his three children enter a confessional where a priest named Father Daniel Thomas is listening, and telling him "I'm desperate, Father!" When the priest tries to calm him and sympathetically urges Yosser to call him Dan, Yosser blurts out the words "I'm desperate, Dan!", a play on the comic character, Desperate Dan. Bleasdale admitted in September 2011 on Radio 4's The Reunion, that he had been saving the joke for years, and that it was the perfect joke at the perfect time.

So memorable .....funny and tragic at the same time

[GoogaMooga]

Oh yes, I remember that comic, with is huge helpings of cow pie.

[Santa C]

I have often wondered where Yosser's three kids are and whether the pursued an acting career

I've tried to look them up but have got nowhere

Googs lad, that's a job for you!



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[Good Night Austin, Texas]

Watched the original play today, robust stuff & full of black humour

As is this, set in Greenock & Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, Scotland

[Hugh]

I have often wondered where Yosser's three kids are and whether the pursued an acting career

I've tried to look them up but have got nowhere

Googs lad, that's a job for you!



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The three kids were Alan Bleasdale's children.

[Jimbly]

I have often wondered where Yosser's three kids are and whether the pursued an acting career

I've tried to look them up but have got nowhere

Googs lad, that's a job for you!



,

The three kids were Alan Bleasdale's children.

One of which played one of The Scousers in the Harry Enfield show.

[Tom Waits For No One]

I have often wondered where Yosser's three kids are and whether the pursued an acting career

I've tried to look them up but have got nowhere

Googs lad, that's a job for you!



,

The three kids were Alan Bleasdale's children.

One of which played one of The Scousers in the Harry Enfield show.

Four of Bleasdale's kids had parts, three were Yozza's kids and another (Gary Bleasdale) played Dixie's son, he's the one that later played one of Harry Enfield's scousers called Gary.

Bleasdale/Yozza's daughter did a bit of crew/production work in Star Wars I and II

[Hugh]

I'm not sure that Gary Bleasedale is Alan's son. The internet says that he is his second cousin and according to Wikipedia, Alan has 3 children.

[Tom Waits For No One]

You’re right.


Beware of geeks sharing false info