The writer thought he would never bring back his 1982 series — then he met the Dear England playwright. They talk ghosts, Keir Starmer and Bernard Hill
Alan Bleasdale is older than the Radio City Tower and, in many people’s eyes, he is a more enduring Liverpool monument. Right now he’s telling a story he says he has not told in at least 40 years. The reclusive 78-year-old writer is sitting next to his collaborator, the playwright James Graham, by the window of a Chinese restaurant in Liverpool’s docklands.
Since September they have been staging an adaptation of Bleasdale’s masterpiece, the 1982 BBC drama Boys from the Blackstuff, at the city’s Royal Court theatre. It’s now on tour — first at the National Theatre then the Garrick in London. Outside, it’s a coarse, chilly, lightless spring day. The Mersey is as grey as concrete.