Alan George Bleasdale (born 23 March 1946) is an English screenwriter, best known forsocial 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.

Born inLiverpool, Bleasdale is an only child; his father worked in a food factory and his mother in a grocery shop.^[1] From 1951 to 1957, he went to the St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Infant and Junior Schools inHuyton-with-Roby outside Liverpool. From 1957 to 1964, he attended theWade Deacon Grammar School inWidnes. In 1967, he obtained a teaching certificate from thePadgate College of Education inWarrington (which became Warrington Collegiate Institute, now part of theUniversity of Chester).^[2]

For four years he worked as a teacher at St Columba's Secondary Modern School inHuyton from 1967 to 1971, then King George V School (now the King George V & Elaine Bernacchi School inBikenibeu inSouth Tarawa) on theGilbert and Ellice Islands (now calledKiribati) from 1971 to 1974, and lastly at Halewood Grange Comprehensive School (now known as Halewood College) inHalewood from 1974 to 1985.^[2] From 1985 to 1986, he worked as a playwright at theLiverpool Playhouse (becoming associate director) and theContact Theatre in Manchester (aUniversity of Manchester venue).^[3]

Bleasdale's first successes came as the writer of radio dramas for theBBC; several of these plays followed the character ofScully, a young man from Liverpool, and were broadcast onBBC Radio Merseyside. Between 1974 and 1979, the character of Scully continued onRadio City Liverpool through a series titled theFranny Scully Show. The character became so successful that Bleasdale wrote a stage play, two novels, and in 1978, aPlay for Today titledScully's New Year's Eve.^[3]

That same year Bleasdale wrote a single play for theBBC1 anthology seriesPlay for Today entitledThe Black Stuff about a group of Liverpudliantarmac layers.^[4] Filmed in 1978 and screened in 1980, the play focused on the issue of unemployment and despair felt by working class British citizens. Prior to screening, Bleasdale wrote toDavid Rose, head of BBC English Regions Drama, andMichael Wearing, script supervisor, and pitched the idea of a five-part series of plays that further explored the characters fromThe Black Stuff. The result was the BAFTA winning seriesBoys from the Blackstuff, which was transmitted onBBC2 in 1982.^[5][6]Bernard Hill starred in the role ofYosser Hughes, whose catch-phrase "Gizza job" became synonymous with the mass unemployment of theThatcher years.^[7] The series established Bleasdale as one of Britain's leading television writers and social commentators.^[8]

AfterThe Black Stuff but beforeBoys from the Blackstuff, Bleasdale wroteThe Muscle Market, which aired as aPlay for Today on TV in 1981 and starredPete Postlethwaite andAlison Steadman.^[9] UnlikeBlackstuff, this play looked at the road construction industry from the boss' side rather than the workers.^[10]

Bleasdale wrote the screenplay for his only feature filmNo Surrender (1985), a black comedy which examines the animosity between the Protestants and Roman Catholics of Northern Ireland. Set in a seedy Liverpool night club, the film focuses on a group of elderly Protestant hardliners attending a New Year's Eve party on the same evening as a group of Catholic retirees.^[11]

Bleasdale adapted William Allison andJohn Fairley's 1978 bookThe Monocled Mutineer into a four part miniseries in 1986. The series, starringPaul McGann, dramatises the WWIEtaples Mutiny of 1917.^[12]In 1987,Charlottetown Festival directorWalter Learning presented theCanadian premiere of the Bleasdale musicalAre You Lonesome Tonight? at theConfederation Centre of the Arts, a national arts centre located onPrince Edward Island. The musical, which took a tough look at the life ofElvis Presley, attracted controversy at a festival for its coarse language and adult subject matter. Regardless of the objections, brought up in the provincial legislature, the play was a success for the festival.^[13] Bleasdale penned the political dramaG.B.H. (Great British Holiday) forChannel 4 in 1991.^[14][15] Focussing on the political upheaval of theLabour Party in Liverpool,G.B.H. pits mild-mannered protagonist Jim Nelson against the northern City Council leader Michael Murray.^[16]

In 1994, Bleasdale collaborated with Keith Thompson and David Jones on an anthology of four filmed dramas written by authors who had no prior screenwriting credits.^[17] The scripts were chosen from a pool of 2,000 applicants, with Bleasdale acting as producer/mentor to each of the four writers chosen and then working on the projects from start to finish. The films, Andrew Cullen'sSelf Catering, Raymond Murtagh'sRequiem Apache,Jim Morris'Blood On the Dole, and Christopher Hood'sPleasure, were screened over four consecutive weeks in October of that year.^[18]

Bleasdale continued his work for Channel 4 with 1995's serialJake's Progress, the story of a modern-day dysfunctional family (Robert Lindsay as the father andJulie Walters as the mother) struggling to cope with a "difficult" child (Barclay Wright).^[19]

In 1999, Bleasdale adaptedCharles Dickens'Oliver Twist intoa four part miniseries forITV.^[2] The adaptation was well received, but attracted some controversy as Bleasdale expanded the narrative by adding a backstory for the character of Oliver.^[20][21]

After an eleven-year absence from television, Bleasdale returned in January 2011 on BBC Two with a two-part TV film,The Sinking of the Laconia. He had been working on the screenplay since 2004; it depicted the events surrounding the World War II ocean linerRMSLaconia and theLaconia incident.^[1]

Bleasdale married Julie Moses on 28 December 1970.^[22] They have two sons and one daughter.

Bleasdale's house is the main location inNickelodeon's youth series calledHouse of Anubis, which premiered in January 2011.^{[citation needed]}

• Alan Bleasdale atIMDb
• Alan Bleasdale at BFI ScreenOnline