Bastard Boys

I was only 12 when the waterfront dispute took place, and because I was away at the time, I knew basically nothing about what had happened. I didn't even know what the dispute was over.

Bastard Boys brilliantly recreates the events surrounding the waterfront dispute, where company Patrick Stevedores tried to sack all of their unionised workers and replace them with non-union staff. To find out what else happens, watch the program.

The miniseries uses recreations of real people involved with the events, such as John Coombs (Colin Friels) and Chris Corrigan (Geoff Morrell), as well as fictional characters such as the Tullys (Dan Wyllie and Jack Thomson).

Bastard Boys does an excellent job of combining the vital legal proceedings with the human side - particularly the wharfies. All the acting is outstanding, although special mention should go to Geoff Morrell, who had the challenging job of bringing Patrick boss Chris Corrigan to the screen and making him human, believable and not simply a two-dimensional bad guy.

There were a few problems with the script - Chris Corrigan's brother appeared out of nowhere, while Greg Combet was strangely underused towards the end. Other than that, an outstanding miniseries - not near the brilliance that was Answered By Fire, but outstanding all the same.