25 February – 1 March

In Alan Bleasdale’s drama, broadcast as a TV series by the BBC in 1982, a group of Liverpudlian road layers are struggling to find employment. Checking that they are not making ‘money on the side’, they are pursued by “sniffers” from the local employment office, which is trialling a Thatcher government initiative to reduce benefits. Written at a time when unemployment was peaking at over 3 million, Bleasdale’s piece gets beneath the statistics to reveal the emotional bonds between working men and their families, their struggles to retain their mental health and put food on the table during a virtual war between person and state. The series won a BAFTA.

Now dramatised by playwright James Graham, who saw at first-hand the deprivations wrought by the miners’ strike of 1984 in his home town of Nottingham, the story has been skilfully compacted into a two-act play that has its audience engrossed from the beginning.

Director Kate Wasserberg, set and costume designer Amy Jane Cook together with lighting designer Ian Scott have proven to be a production dream team. Wasserberg’s work has that wonderful thing in a director’s locker – seamlessness. Boys veers between the benefits office to domestic sitting room to pub and building site. We sweep through all of this kept very much on board, taking for granted the intricacies of moving 14 cast members through so many scene changes. Cook’s set, an evocative remodelling of the Liverpool docks complete with gantries, cranes and corrugated iron walls with sliding metal doors, backed by beguiling video projections from Jamie Jenkin presents a threatening environment. Scott’s lighting adds much to the sense of the play being a series of cameos between individuals, always promoting the intimacy between the various relationships.

Into this rich theatricality a brilliant cast take on the mantle of recreating Bleasdale’s Liverpudlian masterpiece. At its centre, and larger than life, Jay Johnson as Yosser Hughes, immortalised by the line, “Gizza a job, I can do that!” gives palpable desperation to the dark moustachioed father of three, battling on all fronts against poverty, mental breakdown and the loss of his kids. His fevered ticks, bravado, hurt pride and outbursts against questionable authority build to a memorable crescendo in a depiction of frustrated muscular masculinity.

Alongside Yosser are fellow asphalters Chrissie (George Caple), Loggo (Jurell Carter), Dixie (Mark Womack), Snowy (Reiss Barber) and retired mentor George (Ged McKenna), who acts as community sage, handing out commonsensical advice and the occasional pound notes when needed. McKenna brought appreciable warmth to the role, a foil for the more wreckless headbutting diplomacy of Yosser.

Throughout the play there is a sense that it is the most vulnerable who can be picked off, and that those with the wherewithal to bring about change for the better are simply adding to the angst. Jamie Peacock as the dreadfully suited Moss, a young inexperienced, ineffective but ambitious government inspector, and his ultimately more forgiving colleague Ms Sutcliffe (Sian Polhill-Thomas) front the more sinister side of policy enactment. Pressure has consequences of course, and Snowy will pay a big price.

There are further strong performances from Sean Kingsley as dodgy building site hirer Malloy and Amber Blease as Angie who, as Chrissie’s other half, berates him for not taking a job offer that comes with broken principles – but there is nothing in the fridge and the gas has been turned off. There is a memorable interlude between Dixie and his guitar-playing son Kevin (Kyle Harrison-Pope) where the father reveals his guilt for his mistakes as well as his love. These people are not the two-dimensional shirkers they have been portrayed to be for political point scoring.

Boys From the Black Stuff remains a grim but sometimes very funny paean to survival and will retain its relevance as long as there is inequality in the world.

★★★★☆  Simon Bishop, 26 February 2025

Photo credit: Alistair Muir