Boys from the Blackstuff at Richmond Theatre

I need a reason not to see something at Richmond Theatre so I was always likely to go to Boys from the Blackstuff and in this case I had the very positive reason that I had enjoyed both the original play and the subsequent TV series by Alan Bleasdale in the '80s.

That was more than enough for me to fork out £26 for seat Dress Circle A19.

I do not recall the details of the original series, it was over forty years ago!, but I suspect that this was a companion piece rather than an adaptation. 

Original story or not, it very much had the felt like the show I remembered with a mix of desperation and humour as ordinary people fought for work in Thatcher's Britain.

What was new, or I missed it the first time, was the way that even those that were in work or were employers were trapped by the same system. Nobody was winning.

The most memorable character from the series was Yosser Hughes, with his oft repeated phrase "Gizza job", and he was put centre stage here too which I though overshadowed the other important stories a little. Making this version of Yosser Hughes look like the original did not work for me either and it almost veered into pastiche. Luckily the strength of the other characters and the other stories was enough to keep the "boys" of the title plural.

The staging was impressively simple,  flexible and appropriately industrial. In some ways it was the star of the show when everything else was good. Running a close second was the script that wove the stories of the various characters together to create a single narrative that informed and entertained.

Boys from the Blackstuff was not the Alan Bleasdale classic but it was a very acceptable substitute and a timely reminder of what neo-liberal politics does to ordinary people.