Alan Bleasdale
Alan George Bleasdale (born 23 March 1946) is an English screenwriter, best known for social realist drama serials based on the lives of ordinary people. A former teacher, he has written for radio, stage and screen, and has also written novels. Bleasdale's plays typically represented a more realistic, contemporary depiction of life in Liverpool than was usually seen in the media. Early life Born in Liverpool, Bleasdale is an only child; his father worked in a food factory and his mother in a grocery shop. From 1951 to 1957, he went to the St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Infant and Junior Schools in Huyton-with-Roby outside Liverpool. From 1957 to 1964, he attended the Wade Deacon Grammar School in Widnes. In 1967, he obtained a teaching certificate from the Padgate College of Education in Warrington (which became Warrington Collegiate Institute, now part of the University of Chester). For four years he worked as a teacher at St Columba's Secondary Modern School in Huyton from 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population of (in ), Liverpool is the administrative, cultural and economic centre of the Liverpool City Region, a combined authority, combined authority area with a population of over 1.5 million. Established as a borough in Lancashire in 1207, Liverpool became significant in the late 17th century when the Port of Liverpool was heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. The port also imported cotton for the Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution, Lancashire textile mills, and became a major departure point for English and Irish emigrants to North America. Liverpool rose to global economic importance at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and was home to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, firs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is considered a red brick university, a product of the civic university movement of the late 19th century. The current University of Manchester was formed in 2004 following the merger of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and the Victoria University of Manchester. This followed a century of the two institutions working closely with one another. Additionally, the university owns and operates major cultural assets such as the Manchester Museum, The Whitworth art gallery, the John Rylands Library, the Tabley House, Tabley House Collection and the Jodrell Bank Observatory – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology had its origins in the Manchester Mechan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by length of tenure, longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a Barristers in England and Wales, barrister. She was List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election, elected Member of Parliament for Finchley (UK Parliament constituency), Finc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yosser Hughes
Jimmy "Yosser" Hughes is a fictional character from Alan Bleasdale's 1982 (written in 1978) television series ''Boys from the Blackstuff'', set in Liverpool. He is portrayed by Bernard Hill. Appearance and family Yosser is a tall man in his mid-30s who wears predominantly black clothes and has a distinctive bushy moustache. He always appears unkempt and unshaven. His wife, Maureen, is an aggressive, unloving harridan who frequently berated him and who had an affair with another man, the likely father of their three children (played in the drama by Alan Bleasdale's own children). Pilot episode The pilot of ''Blackstuff'' implies that Hughes worked in the Middle East at some time during the 1970s and later bought a house that was beyond the family's means. In the original pilot episode, he appears comparatively sane, but displays macho insecurities that make his redundancy especially hard to take. When the boys are swindled out of their savings in Middlesbrough, Yosser reacts par ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill (17 December 1944 – 5 May 2024) was an English actor. He was known for his versatile roles in both television and film, and his career spanned over fifty years. Hill first gained prominence as the troubled hard man Yosser Hughes in Alan Bleasdale's ''Play for Today'' drama ''The Black Stuff'' (1980) and its sequel serial ''Boys from the Blackstuff'' (1982), the latter earning him a nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor. He received an additional nomination for his role as David Blunkett in the drama ''A Very Social Secretary'' (2005), for which he was also nominated for an International Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor. He also appeared on television in ''I, Claudius'' (1976), the BBC Television Shakespeare productions of '' Henry VI, Part 1'', '' 2'', and '' 3'', and ''Richard III'' (all 1983), ''Great Expectations'' (1999), and ''Wolf Hall'' (2015). Hill gained international recognition for his film roles as Captain Edward Smith in ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and documentaries. BBC Two has a remit "to broadcast highbrow, programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded Public broadcasting, public-service channel, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service channels worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boys From The Blackstuff
''Boys from the Blackstuff'' is a five episode British drama television series, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, as a sequel to a television play titled ''The Black Stuff''. The British Film Institute described it as a "seminal drama series... a warm, humorous but ultimately tragic look at the way economics affect ordinary people… TV's most complete dramatic response to the Thatcher era and as a lament to the end of a male, working class British culture." ''The Black Stuff'' The television play ''The Black Stuff'' was originally written by Bleasdale and directed by Jim Goddard for BBC1's ''Play for Today'' anthology series in 1978. After filming however, the play was not transmitted until 2 January 1980. It concerned a group of Liverpudlian tarmac layers (hence the title, 'the black stuff' being a slang term for tarmac) on a job near Middlesbrough. The acclaim that ''The B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael Wearing
Michael Howard Wearing (12 March 1939 – 5 May 2017) was a British television producer, who spent much of his career working on drama productions for the BBC. He is best known as the producer of the well received serials ''Boys from the Blackstuff'' (1982) and ''Edge of Darkness'' (1985), which created for him a reputation as one of British television's foremost drama producers. Wearing studied Anthropology at Durham University. His initial career was in the theatre, where he worked as a director, before in 1976 he joined the BBC's English Regions Drama Department as a Script Editor under producer David Rose. The department, based at the Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, had been set up as an attempt to counter the BBC's tradition of producing dramas that were almost exclusively made and set in London and the home counties, and was charged with making regional drama based in all areas of the country. Over the following five years, Wearing worked as both a script editor and prod ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Rose (producer)
David Edward Rose (22 November 1924 – 26 January 2017) was a British television producer and commissioning editor. At the BBC Following war service flying on 34 missions in Lancaster bombers, he trained as an actorInterview Theatre Archive Project, British Library, 21 October 2005, p.1 at the Guildhall School of Drama, but following graduation pursued a career in stage management. He became an Assistant Floor Manager for BBC television in LondonInterview Theatre Archive Project, British Library, 21 October 2005, p.5 in 1954 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Asphalt Concrete
Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and Tarmacadam, tarmac or bitumen macadam in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface road surface, roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the nineteenth century. It consists of Construction aggregate, mineral aggregate Binder (material), bound together with bitumen (a substance also independently known as asphalt, Pitch (resin), pitch, or tar), laid in layers, and compacted. The American English terms ''asphalt'' (or ''asphaltic'') ''concrete'', ''bituminous asphalt concrete'', and ''bituminous mixture'' are typically used only in engineering and construction documents, which define concrete as any composite material composed of mineral aggregate adhered with a binder. The abbreviation, ''AC'', is sometimes used for ''asphalt concrete'' but can also denot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, primetime drama and entertainment, and live BBC Sport events. The channel was launched on 2 November 1936 under the name BBC Television Service, which was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution. It was renamed BBC TV in 1960 and used this name until the launch of the second BBC channel, BBC2, in 1964. The main channel then became known as BBC1. The channel adopted the current spelling of BBC One in 1997. The channel's annual budget for 2012–2013 was £1.14 billion. It is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations and shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. The television channel had the highest reach ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Play For Today
''Play for Today'' is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were (with a few exceptions noted below) between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration. A handful of these plays, including ''Rumpole of the Bailey'', subsequently became television series in their own right. History The strand was a successor to ''The Wednesday Play'', the 1960s anthology series, the title being changed when the day of transmission moved to Thursday to make way for a sport programme. Some works, screened in anthology series on BBC2, like Willy Russell's '' Our Day Out'' (1977), were repeated on BBC1 in the series. The producers of ''The Wednesday Play'', Graeme MacDonald and Irene Shubik, transferred to the new series. Shubik continued with the series until ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |