● ALAN BLEASDALE’S TELEVISION classic Boys from the Blackstuff is proof that when it comes to TV drama, less can be more. The five-part series was a masterpiece of compression, following a group of unemployed working-class men dodging the DHSS “sniffers” targeting dole fraud, rubbing donkey-jacketed shoulders with right-on clerics and lofty bureaucrats, and enduring (and sometimes relishing) Tom-and-Jerry chases with debt collectors.
The series became as central to the culture of the 1980s as Margaret Thatcher, Wham! and shoulder pads — a feat of one-liners and mordant