Boys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama series of five episodes, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, as a sequel to a television play, The Black Stuff. The British Film Institute described it as a "seminal drama series a warm, humorous but ultimately tragic look at the way economics affect ordinary people... TV's most complete dramatic response to the Thatcher era and as a lament to the end of a male, working class British culture." The television play The Black Stuff was originally... written by Bleasdale for BBC1's Play for Today anthology series in 1978. After filming however, the play languished untransmitted until being screened on 2 January 1980. It concerned a group of Liverpudlian tarmac layers on a job near Middlesbrough. The acclaim that The Black Stuff received on its eventual transmission led to the commissioning of the sequel serial, of which Bleasdale had already written a considerable amount.
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