The opening 2 hour 'Play for Today' TV film that lead to the 5 part mini-series isn't all that strong. But the 5 remaining parts (ranging from 43 to 68 minutes) are often powerful stuff indeed. A rueful, depressing and cutting look at unemployment and personal and economic depression in the Thatcher years. The opening film isn't really needed, as one could pick up much of what happened from the 5 part mini-series, but it does serve as a good basic set up for the characters and their relationships, as a group of workers on the dole take an off-the- books job laying down tarmac (the black stuff) at a new apartment complex. But in the original film the characters stay frustratingly close to caricatures, and the story twists are largely unsurprising.
But in the 5 part mini-series, made 2 years later, that all changes. Each hour investigates one of the character's lives in great depth and detail, The performances are very strong, and the stories are almost all heartbreaking as we see what being unemployed and unwanted by society does to these men; their families, their self-esteem, even their sanity. There are occasional darkly funny moments, but this is grim, uncompromising stuff, with one episode in particular "Yosser's story" as harrowing and disturbing and honest a piece of film- making as I've seen in a long while. It's interesting (if depressing) to see how much of what was going on in England in 1982, could just as well be America in 2013.
