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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 1951–57, he went to the St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Infant and Junior Schools in Huyton-with-Roby outside Liverpool. From 1957–64, 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 1967–71, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million. On the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the county of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207, a city in 1880, and a county borough independent of the newly-created Lancashire County Council in 1889. Its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, and raw materials such as coal and cotton, merchants were involved in the slave trade. In the 19th century, Liverpool was a major port of departure for English and Irish emigrants to North America. It was also home to both the Cunard and White Star Lines, and was the port of registry of the ocean li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria University 1851 – Owens College 1824 – Manchester Mechanics' Institute , endowment = £242.2 million (2021) , budget = £1.10 billion (2020–21) , chancellor = Nazir Afzal (from August 2022) , head_label = President and vice-chancellor , head = Nancy Rothwell , academic_staff = 5,150 (2020) , total_staff = 12,920 (2021) , students = 40,485 (2021) , undergrad = () , postgrad = () , city = Manchester , country = England, United Kingdom , campus = Urban and suburban , colours = Manchester Purple Manchester Yellow , free_label = Scarf , free = , website = , logo = UniOfManchesterLogo.svg , affiliations = Universities Research Association Sutton 30 Russell Group EUA N8 Group NWUA ACUUniversities UK The Universit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was 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 first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became 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 barrister. She was List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election, elected Member of Parliament for Finchley (UK Parliament constituency), Finchley in 1959 United Kingdom general election, 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, portrayed by Bernard Hill. Appearance and family Yosser is a tall man, in his mid-thirties, who wears predominantly black clothes and has a distinctive bushy moustache. He always appears unkempt and unshaven. He had a wife called Maureen, 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 p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill (born 17 December 1944) is an English actor. He is well recognized for playing King Théoden in ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy, Captain Edward Smith in ''Titanic'', and Luther Plunkitt, the Warden of San Quentin Prison in the Clint Eastwood film ''True Crime''. Hill was also known for playing roles in television dramas, including Yosser Hughes, the troubled "hard man" whose life is falling apart in Alan Bleasdale's ''Boys from the Blackstuff'' in the 1980s, and more recently, as the Duke of Norfolk in the BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's ''Wolf Hall''. Early life Hill was born in Blackley, Manchester. He was brought up in a Catholic family of miners. Hill attended Xaverian College, and then Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama at the same time as Richard Griffiths. He graduated with a diploma in theatre in 1970. Career In 1976, Hill was seen as Police Constable Cluff in the Granada Television series ''Crown Court'', the episode entitled "The Jolly Swag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast 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-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks 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 less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boys From The Blackstuff
''Boys from the Blackstuff'' is a British drama television series of five episodes, 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 slang for tarmac: 'the black stuff') on a job near Middlesbrough. The acclaim that ''The Black Stuff'' recei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Wearing
Michael 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. 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 producer on various series and plays for the department, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Asphalt Concrete
Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac, bitumen macadam, or rolled asphalt in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the twentieth century. It consists of mineral aggregate bound together with asphalt, laid in layers, and compacted. The process was refined and enhanced by Belgian-American inventor Edward De Smedt. The 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 denote ''asphalt content'' or ''asphalt cement'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, primetime drama and entertainment, and live BBC Sport events. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service and 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 share of any broadcaster in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
