While Bleasdale wrote a lot of this before it was screened, it has always been obvious to me that the BBC put it on the year after the great success of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, on ITV, done by the then Central TV franchise rather than Tyne Tees TV, the franchise for the area where the Auf Wiedersehen Pet boys are from.
AWP covered the same subject as BFTBS, the joblessness of working class blokes from the north where de-industrialisation was taking away their livelihood and way of life.
But the difference was the AWP dealt with it with guts and optimism and, to paraphrase a misused quote from a Tory at the time, 'they got on their bikes and looked for work', and did it with good humour as well as having some human problems along the way. By contrast, the writer of BFTBS made it overly and overtly political so you couldn't believe in the characters. Instead, the much better writers of AWP would have the leader of the gang, Dennis, say stuff to his mates within a plot: 'I've seen blokes like you before, you lose your money, you lose your passports, and you get absurdly patriotic for a country that couldn't employ you in the first place!'.
Much, much better. For me, people like Bleasdale give succour to the people who call Liverpool 'Self Pity City'.
Liverpudlians, Scousers, love to think they are funny. They are not.
The Geordies of AWP were funny, and Geordies generally are.
No wonder AWP got two more series, which BFTBS didn't. BFTBS only got its chance because it was funded by a British poll tax called the TV licence fee.
AWP covered the same subject as BFTBS, the joblessness of working class blokes from the north where de-industrialisation was taking away their livelihood and way of life.
But the difference was the AWP dealt with it with guts and optimism and, to paraphrase a misused quote from a Tory at the time, 'they got on their bikes and looked for work', and did it with good humour as well as having some human problems along the way. By contrast, the writer of BFTBS made it overly and overtly political so you couldn't believe in the characters. Instead, the much better writers of AWP would have the leader of the gang, Dennis, say stuff to his mates within a plot: 'I've seen blokes like you before, you lose your money, you lose your passports, and you get absurdly patriotic for a country that couldn't employ you in the first place!'.
Much, much better. For me, people like Bleasdale give succour to the people who call Liverpool 'Self Pity City'.
Liverpudlians, Scousers, love to think they are funny. They are not.
The Geordies of AWP were funny, and Geordies generally are.
No wonder AWP got two more series, which BFTBS didn't. BFTBS only got its chance because it was funded by a British poll tax called the TV licence fee.