The Black Stuff (1980 TV Movie) User Reviews (5)

Unfocused Coming Of Age Tale With All Too Brief Flashes Of Brilliance

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 31 December 2014]

Play For Today gave birth to several series . GANGSTERS was one while RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY was another . Perhaps the most acclaimed series was BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF which become so acclaimed and popular that the one off TV play that gave birth to the legend was very quickly forgotten . While the series got high profile repeats in the 1980s the original PFT did not . With hindsight one can perhaps understand why because THE BLACKSTUFF has a rather different feel to the 1982 black comedy

Before I saw this I had predictable expectations that the narrative was going to revolve around Chrissie or Yosser but this isn't how things pan out . If there's a main character it's Kevin Deans the son of Dixie a 16 year old school leaver setting out in to the bitter sweet journey of life and rather self conscious that he's not had sex . For long segments the story focuses on this character subplot which is strange because Kevin later gets relegated to a few walk on scenes in three episodes of the 1982 series

Another striking element is the fact the characters are working in legal employment , well almost . I say " almost " because with the exception of Dixie and his son the other members of the tarmac gang are what's known as cowboy builders whose standard of work leaves a lot to be desired . When they get involved in a get rich quick scheme with a couple of Irish Gypsies things go from bad to suicidal This aspect is by far the most enjoyable part of the unfocused story and found myself laughing out loud at some of the on screen action towards the end . It does however illustrate a fundamental problem with Alan Bleasdale's writing and that is there is no subtlety involved . Interesting that Yosser isn't the entirely psychotic maniac of the later show , here he's merely a violent misogynistic sociopath but enough of a streetwise sixth sense to think he and his gang might be ripped off . The ways events unravel on screen at this point leave no doubt that Yosser and the boys are getting ripped off and the audience are one step ahead of the suspicious Yosser . If only he'd trusted his instincts which the script feels the need to constantly point out

This leads to a different appreciation of the later series - much of their later problems are entirely self inflicted because the protagonists didn't quit while they were ahead . It's easy to see how all the critics and social commentators picked up on the parable of greed seeing it as a scathing attack on the ethics of Thatcher's Britain . The truth is slightly less political and the reality is that this teleplay was produced and filmed before Thatcher came to power in 1979 and it was an internal dispute that delayed its broadcast for almost two years . Indeed much of the scripts of BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF were also written before the 1979 Tory election victory too

In summary it's somewhat bizarre watching this today . Bizarre in the sense that the play itself is obscure in some ways but features some of the most memorable and colourful characters British television has ever produced but these characters are often off centre and the script lacks a character focus . It's also rather unsubtle . Despite these flaws it's an often entertaining slice of social realist black comedy

The Black Stuff

[Prismark10 · 8/10 · 3 January 2022]

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.

Sharp, Bleakly Funny Black Comedy

[JamesHitchcock · 8/10 · 9 December 2020]

"The Black Stuff", first broadcast in 1980, was recently shown as part of a series on BBC4 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of "Play for Today", although it was not originally screened as part of that series. "Play for Today" was a BBC1 series, and this play was originally shown on BBC2, and although the two channels are both owned by the same corporation, in the seventies and early eighties, a time when Britain still had only three TV channels, they had different identities.

The "black stuff" of the title is tarmac, and the play is about a gang of workers from Liverpool laying tarmac on a road in Middlesbrough. Much of the plot deals with the men's attempts to outwit their foreman Dixie Dean (named after a famous Everton footballer) so they can slope off to "do a foreign", a slang phrase meaning using their employer's tools and equipment to do an unofficial job, in this case laying a track for a farmer, for which they will be paid on the side. The "foreign", however, has been arranged by a crafty pair of Irish gypsies, who are attempting to double-cross the gang. A sub-plot deals with Dixie's teenage son Kevin and his attempts to lose his virginity to a local good-time girl.

The play later gave rise to a television series named "The Boys from the Blackstuff" which followed the later lives of the gang, now unemployed and trying to survive on the dole. The eighties were a period of high unemployment in Britain, and the series became a symbol of the decade, widely seen as an indictment of life in what became known as "Thatcher's Britain". Bernard Hill's character Yosser Hughes, with his catchphrase "Gizza job!" became an eighties icon. Yet the original play shows just why nobody in their right mind would entrust Yosser with a job. He is not only dishonest, playing a leading role in the "foreign" scheme, but also quarrelsome, loud-mouthed and potentially violent. He is also not as smart as he thinks he is, letting the gypsies pull a fast one on him, and an idle worker. Mind you, he is not alone in being idle- the rest of the gang also try and get away with doing the bare minimum of work, and would probably do even less than that if the Clerk of the Works were not keeping his officious eye on them. There are several good performances in the play, but Hill's is probably the best.

It is a long time since I saw any of the episodes from "The Boys from the Blackstuff", so I will not attempt any direct comparisons, but the original play is less directly political. It was, in fact, made in 1978 under the Callaghan government, but for complicated reasons to do with internal disputes within the Beeb it was not shown until 1980, after the 1979 election which brought Margaret Thatcher to power. It is perhaps the lack of overt political content which has meant that "The Black Stuff" is less well known than its spin-off series, but it is in fact it is a very sharp, bleakly funny black comedy which deserves to be better remembered. 8/10

A tribute to the evil Margaret Thatcher.

[xpat-55192 · 10/10 · 6 January 2021]

The dire conditions of early-80's Britain was exacerbated by AWFUL Prime Minister and chief salesperson of taxpayers assets, Margaret Thatcher, who happily became working-class Britain's arch-enemy.

Former working class herself (a grocer's daughter) Thatcher turned like a semi-automatic cobra on anyone less-fortunate than herself which including the hundreds of thousands of Britain's unemployed many of whom she had sent, or would send, to war with Argentina.

In stark contrast to one reviewer; I say that their is no real ha-ha humour in this excellent dramatic series which describes the atrocious conditions imposed on the British working people.

The individual characters created by Tony Bleasedale are masterful, the cast are incredible, and this gripping series deserved every accolade and recognition it received and will continue to receive.

As a Brit, I say it is a superb watch, accurate, and thoroughly recommended A1+++++.

A real treat.

[tise_uk · 19 September 2004]

A group of lads from "Liverpool" travel to "Middlesborough" in their transit van to lay tarmac on the roads of a new estate on "Teeside". Whilst there they get up to all sorts of mayhem,the young lad who is the "teaboy" is told by the older men to put plenty of sugar in the his tea because it will help his sex drive.! Meanwhile the guys have a dream of owning their own tarmac gang,and go off to a local bank to try to borrow the money for this hair brain scheme. As you can imagine all of this dreaming could go belly up, and the sex drive etc could be a "windup". Most of the cast went to on to be big names in "Great Britain",and this is real classic that will make you howl with laughter.