Having watched The Boys from the Blackstuff first.
This Play for Today. The Black Stuff is a prequel that fills in the gap to the landmark serial. It explains how the characters got to the end of their tether.
A group of tarmac layers from Liverpool are sent by their boss to do a job in Middlesbrough.
Dixie Dean is the foreman but he meets his match with the sharp clerk of works. The clerk is a hard man to please and is in no mood for any nonsense.
McKenna, their dodgy boss is less than pleased to find the others are moonlighting. The erratic and short tempered Yosser Hughes has done a deal with some gypsies to lay some tarmac on the side.
Chrissie Todd and Loggo who have teamed up with Yosser are reluctant to deal with the gypsies, knowing they would get cheated.
When the lads pick up a young female student who is hitchhiking tells you the disregard that further education was treated in the late 1970s.
The student is mocked and treated with disdain. Yosser Hughes is hostile to her. Yet Dixie's son, Kevin also a tarmac layer could had benefited from staying on in education. Especially once the recession of the 1980s happened.
The lack of education and nous is displayed when Chrissie and Yosser do business on the side with the gypsies despite being aware of the dodgy reputation of the latter. A character mentions; once bitten, twice bitten.
Even Dixie Dean is out of his depth as the foreman. Being pushed around by the clerk and cannot stop the others moonlighting. Even his horny son just wants to cop off.
This is an episodic film, it meanders when Kevin gets some money together to see a masseur operating in the nearby hotel room.
It hits home when it all falls apart fo the lads. It gets bleak as the tar. They have run out of road.
The acting is wonderful. The standout is Yosser Hughes (Bernard Hill.) His story in The Boys of the Blackstuff is one of the most brilliant piece of television I have ever seen in my life.
This Play for Today. The Black Stuff is a prequel that fills in the gap to the landmark serial. It explains how the characters got to the end of their tether.
A group of tarmac layers from Liverpool are sent by their boss to do a job in Middlesbrough.
Dixie Dean is the foreman but he meets his match with the sharp clerk of works. The clerk is a hard man to please and is in no mood for any nonsense.
McKenna, their dodgy boss is less than pleased to find the others are moonlighting. The erratic and short tempered Yosser Hughes has done a deal with some gypsies to lay some tarmac on the side.
Chrissie Todd and Loggo who have teamed up with Yosser are reluctant to deal with the gypsies, knowing they would get cheated.
When the lads pick up a young female student who is hitchhiking tells you the disregard that further education was treated in the late 1970s.
The student is mocked and treated with disdain. Yosser Hughes is hostile to her. Yet Dixie's son, Kevin also a tarmac layer could had benefited from staying on in education. Especially once the recession of the 1980s happened.
The lack of education and nous is displayed when Chrissie and Yosser do business on the side with the gypsies despite being aware of the dodgy reputation of the latter. A character mentions; once bitten, twice bitten.
Even Dixie Dean is out of his depth as the foreman. Being pushed around by the clerk and cannot stop the others moonlighting. Even his horny son just wants to cop off.
This is an episodic film, it meanders when Kevin gets some money together to see a masseur operating in the nearby hotel room.
It hits home when it all falls apart fo the lads. It gets bleak as the tar. They have run out of road.
The acting is wonderful. The standout is Yosser Hughes (Bernard Hill.) His story in The Boys of the Blackstuff is one of the most brilliant piece of television I have ever seen in my life.