The ironic tragedy of chronically unemployed asphaltman Yosser Hughes in Alan Bleasdale’s drama Boys From The Blackstuff was that he screamed and wailed into the void. Nobody was listening. Now his legendary appeal to everyone he passed on the streets of Liverpool to “hide” him a job went unheard and ignored. People and even the world had turned their backs on Yosser, his despair and the collapse of his dignity too ugly and disturbing to look at.
In this case, more than 40 years later, following the announcement of the death of Bernard Hill, the highly acclaimed British actor who portrayed him, Yosser, who had been overlooked, achieved that rare feat of remaining deep within the mindset of the nation, helping to define the mindset of the nation. and it is remarkable that he continues to define it. He represents an entire era in the 1980s and a class of people who held him up as a mascot to be both feared and proud of. A symbol of challenge and a warning.
We all know the jersey. When a beloved actor dies, there’s a dangerous tendency to reduce a long career to a single role. Modern social media can react quickly to hastily written posts, declaring that so-and-so is “known for her roles…” with shouts and harsh reactions to the parts fans would prefer she be remembered for.
This is also true of Hill, who has had a varied and distinguished career on stage and screen, in Shakespeare and new plays, from popular British films such as Shirley Valentine to Hollywood giants such as Titanic and The Lord of the Rings.
You also get the sense that Hill is understandably tired of his inability to walk the tarmac of the city he calls his ‘second home’ without encountering a stream of fans parroting the slogans Yosser chants to him. “Give me a job, go ahead, do it, I can do this”.
But this was a disappointment that was tempered in later years as awareness grew not only of the significance of such a legacy but also of the harrowing resonance that the character’s despair carries on desperate people even today.
It’s a resonance that echoes off the walls of Liverpool’s Royal Palace every night; I – along with Alan Bleasdale – had the great privilege of adapting Boys From the Blackstuff for the stage here before it embarked on its journey to the National Theater in London. We’re in the West End this summer.
It’s a privilege for me because, growing up in my own deindustrialized community, I saw how Yosser made sense of my neighbors’ plight. When I wrote Sherwood for the BBC, I channeled my inner Bleasdale and pinched myself every day. Now I will start working with my idol. Sometimes you have to meet your heroes…
Yosser is no hero. He is a complex and paradoxical man, fierce and gentle, a scary man and a frightened child. He hates the world and loves his children. A single father headbutting street lamps and hugging his children. It is being broken and beaten with painful blows, unemployment and bureaucracy.
Why is Blackstuff important today? So why the explosion of love for Hill and Bleasdale’s character? After all, we no longer live in the world Yosser lived in; We don’t live with the ‘Boys’, along with Chrissie, Dixie, Loggo and George, whose names are now as familiar to Liverpool folk as any street.
Recently, when a group from a youth theater came to see the play, they asked if it was really true that you couldn’t find work at that time. Their experience is that people now have to work more than one job. In the cost of living crisis, where wages have barely changed for a decade, you almost have to do ‘too much’, too much work, to make ends meet.
But what they realized was that this was where it all started. The origins of the ‘levelling up’ dilemma, where entire industries disappear from a region and are replaced by no investments or plans.
Many people mistakenly see Blackstuff as Bleasdale specifically taking on Thatcherism. Alan is quick to point out that he started writing his book in 1978, during the Labor government. But by the time the series aired in 1982—whether the need for such reclamation policies was acknowledged or not at the time—half the country watched in open-mouthed disbelief as a drama showed the human cost of it all, and the other half felt like their lives were finally being seen.
Yosser himself was fundamentally a Thatcherite, rejecting the collectivism of the more community-oriented George (played by the veteran Peter Kerrigan). In the original 1978 Play For Today, which gave birth to the anthology series, Yosser believes that if a person is smart enough and ambitious enough, like himself, they will be successful. He didn’t want alms, he wanted to stand proudly on his own feet.
Blackstuff has never been an overtly left-wing, annoying whiner demanding sympathy for those on benefits. The cruelty of the system that drove Yosser mad was that here were hard-working men who took pride in their craft as asphalt pavers who “paved the roads” but were brought to their knees by forces beyond their control and subjected to the indignities of weekly visits. They were told they needed to find a job, but there were none.
Hill’s death also reminds us of a time when working-class actors and writers like himself could rise to the top of the industry. It was clear that something was going on in Liverpool in the 70s and 80s. Alongside Hill and Bleasdale, the group of artists gathered in the bar of the Everyman Theater on Hope Street included Julie Walters, Bill Nighy and Pete Postlethwaite, playwright Willy Russell and musician Barbara Dickson. Here was a place determined to make a noise, to tell its stories. Essentially, Blackstuff was a family affair. Yosser’s children are played by Bleasdale’s own children, who see Hill as another father figure and everyone is always at someone else’s house.
In fact, Hill did his Yosser research by working with Bleasdale’s brother-in-law, also a paver, for several weeks as a layer of black material. Bleasdale fondly remembers how the asphalt layers were very suspicious of this actor’s appearance, but in the end he was very successful in it. After all, Yosser was right. He could do this. So much so that between acting jobs, Hill would go back to laying black things with the kids to pay for it. An example of life imitating art.
If Yosser’s legacy was one of despair, Hill’s should be one that reminds us of the value of arts and culture in regional working-class communities. His was a story that needed to be told.
Yosser’s plea went unheard. But thanks to Hill’s brutal, authentic and humane portrayal, their howls of pain echo through the decades.
‘Boys From the Blackstuff’ is at Liverpool Royal Palace until 11 May (liverpoolroyalcourt.com), then at the National Theater in London from 22 May to 8 June (nationaltheatre.org.uk) and Garrick Theater
Between 13 June and 8 August (boysfromtheblackstuff.com)