Boys from the Blackstuff Specials

A group of lads from Liverpool travels to Middlesbrough in their transit van to lay tarmac on the roads of a new estate on Teeside.

Shown in 1981 as a standalone between the initial drama and the subsequent series, it centres on Danny Duggan played by Peter Postlethwaite, the building boss who employs people cheaply by being complicit in the social security fraud of his employees and therefore guilty of a crime himself.

Bernard Hill remembers Boys from the Blackstuff, Alan Bleasdale’s iconic drama, which is being shown again as part of the BBC’s Centenary celebrations, and which was once described as ‘TV’s most complete dramatic response to the Thatcher era’. Hill’s performance as Yosser Hughes, with his ‘Gizza job’ catchphrase, captured the public’s imagination in a way that few roles have since. Here he looks back on how he got the part, why it struck such a chord, and what audiences should take from ‘Blackstuff’ today.