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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

The quality of Mersey – Why The Boys From The Blackstuff still matters

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2024

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The most searing drama of the 1980s, Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff turned Thatcher’s unemployment crisis into unmissable TV. Unemployed builder “Yosser” Hughes’s desperate plea “gizza job” became a catchphrase. Now the story comes to London in an acclaimed stage adaptation by James ‘Dear England’ Graham. Barry Sloane, cast as Yosser, talks to Andrew Harrison about why the Blackstuff still matters, the legacy of original Yosser actor Bernard Hill… and the power of dark humour. We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Simon Williams. Art by James Parrett. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved

0:05.5

photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

0:11.8

Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?

0:13.0

I loved going to college.

0:14.0

It's good you can retrain and do something.

0:16.0

Yeah, yeah.

0:17.0

Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.

0:22.0

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0:28.0

Search Phoenix Group living longer.

0:30.0

Pets brings so much joy.

0:32.0

From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa.

0:37.0

So give a little love back with Dental Life from Purina, a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so look after

0:55.9

theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome back to the bunker the Bitesize News and Politics

1:14.2

podcast I'm Andrew Harrison listeners of a certain age my age will have been

1:19.0

saddened here on May the 5th of the death of the actor Bernard Hill according the papers, he was famous to playing King Theodin in the Lord of the Rings movie

1:26.4

trilogy or the Titanic's doomed Captain Smith.

1:30.1

But to anybody who was watching television in 1982 he was synonymous with one character whose significance out grew television

1:36.5

Yossa Hughes from Alan Bleasdale's Landmark series The Boys and the Black Stuff.

1:40.9

An ordinary man broken down and driven to mental

1:43.7

collapse by the loss of his job and his children and by careless authorities to

1:47.5

him he was just another idle scouser, Yossa became a true icon of the 1980s and the cruelty of a government which

1:54.0

abandoned old working-class areas. His desperate pleading catchphrase

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