BBC - Liverpool - History - Scully
- ️BBC
- ️Thu Aug 20 2009
Play For Today, Scully's New Years Eve
Alan Bleasdale, the man behind Boys From The Blackstuff and GBH, had his first work Scully broadcast on BBC Radio Merseyside.
In the early 1970’s Alan Bleasdale was working as a teacher on Merseyside and wrote a series of short stories about a teenager called Scully to entertain his pupils.
The stories were Bleasdale’s first broadcast work being played on BBC Radio Merseyside in 1971.
Later Bleasdale would write a stage play, two novels and a 1978 BBC television play about Scully, ‘Scully’s New Year’s Eve’ with Andrew Schofield playing the lead role.
The character and actor would go on to appear in a 1984 Channel Four series.
In the meantime Alan Bleasdale had enjoyed significant success with Boys From The Blackstuff which when screened as a series on BBC2 in 1982 proved so popular that was quickly repeated on BBC1.
Scully was a 15 year old Scouser called Francis or Franny Scully whose adventures where set against the working class background in which he lived.
Catching the spirit of the time
Boys From The Blackstuff was shown at a time when three million people were unemployed and reflected a national experience of working class communities.
The cast of Boys From The Blackstuff
The characters had already appeared in a BBC Play For Today which was shown in 1980, although actually shot two years previously.
After working on Scully for Channel Four, Alan Bleasdale wrote a controversial four part series for BBC One about a First World War called The Monocled Mutineer.
In 1991 Alan Bleasdale wrote GBH for Channel Four a seven part serial about the takeover of a northern city by political extremists.
The programme starred Robert Lindsay and Michael Palin.
In the late 1990’s Bleasdale worked on the adaptation of two novels for television Oliver Twist for ITV and Melissa for Channel Four.