Alan Bleasdale

Writing

Alan Bleasdale

Born

1946-03-23 (80)

Place of birth

Liverpool, England, UK

Known for

Writing

Credits

19 titles

Alan Bleasdale 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. His most notable works include Boys From the Blackstuff, The Monocled Mutineer and GBH.

Known for

Wogan poster
5.3

Chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities.

Wogan

1982

A Life on Screen poster
8.0

Documentary series that celebrates the incredible careers of the best of British talent.

A Life on Screen

2014

No artwork available
NR

Riverside was a TV series broadcast on BBC2 in the United Kingdom featuring musicians, bands, actors, fashion designers, artists and comedians. It consisted of sketches, interviews and live performances. Guests included Alice Cooper, Steve Strange, Martin Rushent, Alan Adler, Clare Grogan, Paul Weller, Martin Fry, The Cure, The Smiths, New Order and Pauline Black.

Riverside

1982

The 50 Greatest Television Dramas poster
NR

Boasting an amazing selection of the most watched, most influential and most highly acclaimed programmes ever made, The 50 Greatest Television Dramas presents a long overdue assessment of the rich heritage television drama has to offer. Channel 4 invited over 200 of Britain's top television drama professionals – writers, directors, producers and commissioners – to take part in an exclusive poll to discover what they consider the finest dramas ever produced.

The 50 Greatest Television Dramas

2007

The 60s: The Beatles Decade poster
NR

When people are asked to think about the 1960s, they automatically think love, peace and...The Beatles. Over the decade, the Fab Four changed from cheeky pop mop-heads to blissed-out experimentalists, and this transformation mirrored the country as a whole. This five-part documentary series looks at how the world's most famous pop group personified one of the most explosive and volatile decades of the 20th century. Although the 60s generation had it all, a changing political landscape and changing attitudes to sex and relationships were dragging Britain into a new age. By the end of the decade, The Beatles had split up, proving that the band's personalities and their music had become true symbols of an iconic decade.

The 60s: The Beatles Decade

2008

Early to Bed poster
3.0

Alan Bleasdale’s television debut, this beautifully observed drama stars Alison Steadman as a woman having a passionate tryst with the boy next door while her husband is at work.

Early to Bed

1975

Film credits

Series credits

Wogan poster
5.3

Chat show hosted by Terry Wogan, featuring live studio interviews with famous and notable personalities.

Wogan

1982

A Life on Screen poster
8.0

Documentary series that celebrates the incredible careers of the best of British talent.

A Life on Screen

2014

No artwork available
NR

Riverside was a TV series broadcast on BBC2 in the United Kingdom featuring musicians, bands, actors, fashion designers, artists and comedians. It consisted of sketches, interviews and live performances. Guests included Alice Cooper, Steve Strange, Martin Rushent, Alan Adler, Clare Grogan, Paul Weller, Martin Fry, The Cure, The Smiths, New Order and Pauline Black.

Riverside

1982

The 60s: The Beatles Decade poster
NR

When people are asked to think about the 1960s, they automatically think love, peace and...The Beatles. Over the decade, the Fab Four changed from cheeky pop mop-heads to blissed-out experimentalists, and this transformation mirrored the country as a whole. This five-part documentary series looks at how the world's most famous pop group personified one of the most explosive and volatile decades of the 20th century. Although the 60s generation had it all, a changing political landscape and changing attitudes to sex and relationships were dragging Britain into a new age. By the end of the decade, The Beatles had split up, proving that the band's personalities and their music had become true symbols of an iconic decade.

The 60s: The Beatles Decade

2008

No artwork available
7.0

Julie Walters and Friends was a one-off comedy sketch show showcasing the talents of actress Julie Walters. Sketches were written by Walters' frequent collaborators, including Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett, Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale. Walters portrayed new characters alongside roles she had previously been known for, including a monologue in which she appeared as Mrs Murray, her character from G.B.H, written by Bleasdale. The show was nominated for the Best Light Entertainment award at the 1992 BAFTAs.

Julie Walters and Friends

1991

Behind the camera

Early to Bed poster
3.0

Alan Bleasdale’s television debut, this beautifully observed drama stars Alison Steadman as a woman having a passionate tryst with the boy next door while her husband is at work.

Early to Bed

1975

No Surrender poster
6.7

It's New Year's Eve in Thatcher's de-industrialising Britain. The scene is set at a seedy bar in Liverpool where a group of Irish Protestant and Irish Catholic pensioners will gather to clash and bash the new year in.

No Surrender

1985

Julie Walters and Friends poster
NR

Julie Walters stars in new sketches by four accomplished writers who helped make her famous.

Julie Walters and Friends

1991

The Black Stuff poster
7.4

A Liverpool tarmac gang set off for a contract in Middlesbrough. After a day of work, the group are approached by two gypsies who offer them a lucrative side job.

The Black Stuff

1980

Pleasure poster
8.5

Alan Bleasdale's modern re-telling of Madame Bovary. A tale of passion, greed, revenge, and of course pleasure, set in France. Starring Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar, Jennifer Ehle and James Larkin. In the French city of Rouen, the beautiful, young but bored Emma seeks to escape her dull married life. Her dreams are answered, and her comfortable, peaceful existence soon tarnished when she answers a lonely-hearts ad. She meets Gustave, a unsuccessful toy salesman, and potential con man. Together they begin a passionate affair, where they indulge in illicit sex and illegal scams. But parallel to their exhilarating affair, the police are on the hunt for a mysterious masked robber known only as Le Terroriste. As the stakes rise, and a betrayal means Emma finding herself alone, her own talents for deception develop into an overwhelming and obsessive desire for her to get her revenge.

Pleasure

1994

Scully's New Year's Eve poster
9.0

Scully invites his mates to gatecrash his mum's New Year's Eve party.

Scully's New Year's Eve

1978

A Turn for the Worse poster
NR

Simon Simpson runs an entertainment agency in Liverpool. At one of his regular auditions in The Bootle Railway Club he sees an aggressive young man fresh from the dole queue who dreams of becoming a professional comedian. Simpson believes the boy has talent and starts to groom him for 'stardom'.

A Turn for the Worse

1981

Soft Sand, Blue Sea poster
6.0

13 year-old David and nine year-old Danni live in a children's home, where despite the best of adult intentions, there is conflict and sudden tragedy. When the pair escape the home, they embark upon a daring adventure in search of the beach.

Soft Sand, Blue Sea

1998

The Muscle Market poster
7.0

Danny Duggan runs a failing building contractors, and resorts to sub-gangster thuggery to keep the business afloat. However, with the bottom falling out of the building game, Duggan finds that playing at gangster is only fun when you're on the winning side.

The Muscle Market

1981

Requiem Apache poster
7.5

Alan Bleasdale's comic crime caper for Channel 4 about a former getaway driver desperate to leave his life of crime behind. Featuring Alfred Molina, David Ross, Amanda Mealing, Andrew Schofield and Julie Walters. Raymond Murtagh's Requim Apache tells the story of Hamish, who was once one of the criminal underworld's best getaway drivers. Now a new father and retired to the Suffolk countryside, he has to watch the baby at home alone. However, Hamish's peaceful and idyllic new life is shattered when his past rears its ugly head once again, and the old gang comes over for a visit. They make him an offer he dare not refuse to take on one last bank job. However, with no babysitter available, he is forced to take the baby with him.

Requiem Apache

1994

Blood on the Dole poster
7.5

Alan Bleasdale's touching yet frank drama for Channel 4 about the struggles of a group of young adults leaving school in a deprived area of Liverpool. Starring Stephen Walters, Suzanne Maddock and Amanda Mealing. Based on the acclaimed play by Jim Morris, voted Most Promising Playwright by the Financial Times and Morning Star in 1981. Blood on the Dole shows the lives of four teenagers, two boys and two girls, struggling to cope after being thrust into the real world for the first time after leaving school. Living in deprived Merseyside, the four youths' bright-eyed optimism for their futures and new-found freedom is soon crushed by the realities of unemployment, poverty, and the brutal reality of living and trying to find work in a city in decline. They all soon find themselves in the hopeless situation of facing complete dependence on state handouts, "the dole". The four teenagers instead find themselves turning to each other to find the strength to survive.

Blood on the Dole

1994

Dangerous Ambition poster
NR

Daniel Massey stars as a priest who faces a crisis when the local community turns against him after he is suspected of molesting a young girl who he befriends on a local housing estate.

Dangerous Ambition

1978

Self Catering poster
8.5

Alan Bleasdale's star-studded comedy/drama about the lives of five plane crash survivors stranded together on a deserted island. Starring Jane Horrocks, John Gordon Sinclair, Jennifer Ehle, Noreen Kershaw and Andrew Schofield. When a plane crashes, five very different survivors find themselves trapped together on an apparently deserted, idyllic island. Everyone else has been killed except for the five survivors that emerge from the wreckage, one unconscious. One of these people, a dedicated film-lover, makes light of their perilous situation by comparing it to countless movie plots. This leads the survivors to start their lives afresh, taking on the names and personalities of famous movie stars to cope in their interactions with each other, which leads to many hilarious and erotic encounters.

Self Catering

1994