REVIEW: Boys From The Blackstuff
Reading Time: 3 minutesWithout spoiling anything, the 3 BAFTA award-winning TV show of the same name takes the audience back to the pre-Thatcher era of Liverpool. We join a group of 5 men who once worked as tarmac layers, hence the name blackstuff. They, along with various family members, try to find work and dodge the ‘sniffers’ from the office of employment who are trying to catch fraudulent contracts. Even before the performance started you could feel the atmosphere in the Royal, this was only increased by a glance at the program. By his admission, the Royal Court’s executive producer Kevin Fearon has been desperate to see this adaptation come to life. Even as a person in my 20’s I felt by the close that I better understood one of the darkest periods in Liverpool’s history. From a brief glance at the history of the original show, this adaption seems to weave all the stories together, gliding from moments of comedy to deep profound reflections about hopeless situations.
