"The Black Stuff", first broadcast in 1980, was recently shown as part of a series on BBC4 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of "Play for Today", although it was not originally screened as part of that series. "Play for Today" was a BBC1 series, and this play was originally shown on BBC2, and although the two channels are both owned by the same corporation, in the seventies and early eighties, a time when Britain still had only three TV channels, they had different identities.
The dire conditions of early-80's Britain was exacerbated by the-then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who happily became working-class Britain's persecutor. Former working class herself (a grocer's daughter) Thatcher turned like a semi-automatic cobra on anyone less-fortunate than herself which including the hundreds of thousands of Britain's unemployed many of whom she had sent or would send to war with Argentina.
The dire conditions of early-80's Britain was exacerbated by the-then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who happily became working-class Britain's persecutor. Former working class herself (a grocer's daughter) Thatcher turned like a semi-automatic cobra on anyone less-fortunate than herself which including the hundreds of thousands of Britain's unemployed many of whom she had sent or would send to war with Argentina.
Play For Today gave birth to several series . GANGSTERS was one while RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY was another .
A group of lads from "Liverpool" travel to "Middlesborough" in their transit van to lay tarmac on the roads of a new estate on "Teeside". Whilst there they get up to all sorts of mayhem,the young lad who is the "teaboy" is told by the older men to put plenty of sugar in the his tea because it will help his sex drive.!
