BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF at the Garrick Theatre

★★★

“the work feels constrained by its loyalty to the original series”

James Graham’s latest stage play following smash hit ‘Dear England’ is another piece that seeks to show us something about the state of the nation, albeit this time from a historical, rather than contemporary, lens. Boys from the Blackstuff is an adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s 1982 TV drama, considered among the best TV dramas of the twentieth century and currently available on BBC iPlayer. Now playing at the Garrick Theatre after transferring from the Liverpool Royal Court via the National Theatre, it’s a piece that attempts to both act as a faithful homage to the much-loved series, whilst introducing the blackstuff to younger audiences more likely to assume it’s in reference to the decline of mining towns than out of work tarmac layers.

Despite some suggestions that the play is just as relevant today, if not more so, than it was on TV release in 1982, this is most definitely a period piece. Unemployment in the UK in the early 1980s reached more than 10%, a far cry from the current national average of 4%. But in Liverpool, unemployment reached a whopping 20%, double the national average, following the collapse of the shipping industry and shedding of workers by major employers that were or still are common household names: United Biscuits, Tate and Lyle, Kellogg’s and Schweppes. Whilst this trend of higher-than-average unemployment persists in Liverpool today, the scale of the challenge is incomparable to what was experienced some 40 years ago.

Some of the underlying causes for this are explored in the play with characters providing theories from economics to geography. But ultimately, the ensemble piece shows how all the boys: Chrissie, Yosser, George, Dixie, Loggo and Snowy; are all most concerned with how they will survive, quite literally, as breadwinners for their families.

It takes a while for each of the characters to develop beyond surface level for several reasons. In Act One, the too short scenes are punctuated by over-choreographed set changes accompanied by the singing of an adapted Irish folk song, meaning conversations feel stunted. Time is also given to comic moments seemingly dropped in from the series that are not particularly sophisticated but got big laughs from the crowd.

All this results in a simplisitic portrayal of ‘good’ boys just trying to provide for themselves and their families picking up casual work and claiming the giro vs. the evil staff at the Department for Employment. Things do improve in Act Two, but it’s too long coming, meaning when Snowy dies after being chased by the dole-snoopers, we know too little about him to really care.

The most developed character is Yosser Hughes (Barry Sloane), the most forceful and fearsome of the group. Sloane’s portrayal of a man in the midst of a mental breakdown is rousing, aided by Kate Wasserberg’s choice to have him speak to his kids without them appearing on stage in an otherwise realist piece. This is explained at the show’s climax to devastating effect. But alongside this quite tragic arc, Sloane must continually regurgitate Yosser’s ‘gizza job’ catch phrase, which again may work on TV spread out over many episodes, but wore thin after it’s umpteenth hearing.

One of the piece’s saving grace’s is Amy Jane Cook’s set and costume design which feels fresh and exciting, with ominous cranes like fossilized relics of Liverpool’s once glorious past towering over the action. But on the whole, the work feels constrained by its loyalty to the original series, with the potential for more tension and drama in a more radical interpretation, rather than the apparently faithful condensation of a five-part series to a 2.5-hour stage production.