Peter Flannery's North-East epic, Our Friends in the North" BBC2 (1996)

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/01/13/13/friends-of-the-north.jpg

I'm three episodes into a rewatch of this on Britbox and it really stands up after all these years. The way Flannery combines personal and familial drama with subjects like social housing policy or police corruption is impressive. It's ten hours in total (episode lengths vary slightly, a small victory for Flannery, so wikipedia suggests) and you do feel, watching it now, that it really should be much longer. I'm trying to watch it slowly as the leaps in years (It covers 31 years in total) from episode to episode feel a bit jarring it you inhale it too quickly. Of course you can make the usual complaints about aging makeup and wigs etc.

The thing started as a 3+1/2 stage play, inspired by the time Flannery spent working on Henry IV pts 1 & 2 for the RSC. It ended with the 1979 election of Thatcher,in that version. Attempts were then made to make it for TV in the 80s However, by this point in the mid-1980s, Michael Grade was Director of Programmes for BBC Television, and he had no interest in the project (wikipdia)

It's a shame that no-one was interested in Flannery's proposed prequel about the Jarrow March.

I wonder how it's regarded in the North East? Gina McKee is the only one of the main four from there.

Heads up: Britbox has a 30 day free trial.

I can't imagine the joyriding crash scene with Pulp's Common People blaring out or the scene with James Bond triumphantly marching over the bridge to Oasis have aged well!

they should ban anything but soundtrack music in movies and drama imo!

I'm wondering about the latter. It crushed me at the time.

sorry not being flippant. I enjoyed this as the time and then re-watched about 7 years ago and basically enjoyed it but was a bit annoyed about some of it, but it is still better quality than the unwatchable shit they put out these days.

Not at all, this is my third viewing and my previous one was probably about the same time.

can't find it but there was definitely a thread that covered this in the past. I watched it for the first time about 5 years ago or so and enjoyed it but the thread was mainly naysaying. it's sort of the last of those kind of didactic social realist things on British telly, they didn't really make them anymore at the time, and they certainly don't make them anymore as far as I can tell.

It is certainly didactic but there's a lot to tell.

apparently the play gets into colonialism in Southern Africa as well, so it could have been even more wide-ranging

didactic as it is, at least it attempts to grapple with UK social history themes in a way you ain't going to get in P***y B******s. It definitely wouldn't get made these days.

yes, there are a few references to Rhodesia but the storyline itself was dropped.

Is the Britbox version edited? The BBC sneakily released a 15 cut on DVD after the original 18 one

definitely the original.

(all the soho porn & strip club stuff is intact)

In the late 90s I was working in retail, Jigsaw Menswear, to be specific and we would honestly spend days on end without a sale but then we would get a day when we would randomly take 2 or 3 thousand quid. I was really god at selling. I never really worked out how the finances supported the whole set-up or were feeding the central manager's very evident coke habits. One day Daniel Craig came into the shop alone and had a swift look around. It must have been August and he must have been there because of the festival, I was never sure. I wanted to call-out "what fettle, geordie?" to him but I never plucked up the courage to do so and I think about that day very often. Ends//

Clive Owen came in, another time and I think about that as well.

Finished this yesterday, thanks to whoever pointed out it's on iplayer. Probably the best television I'll see this year. Lots of spoilers follow:

Tosker's arc has given me quite a lot of insight into the mentality of the type of landlord wanker who votes tory but somehow still considers themselves working class - and opening a garish boat pub with an Animals cover band is such a perfect ending to that story. Nicky's turn in the 1987 episode is probably quite revealing of his generation as well - idealistic labour member in the 60's, leftist radical in the 70's, "I thought I had all the answers, I know better now". And what does he do with his newfound wisdom? Make exploitative photo books of the homeless and cheat on his wife a lot. Mary obviously the most sympathetic of the lot so it hurt seeing her end up a New Labour MP - and yet it's seeded pretty clearly in that discussion about youth delinquency she has with Nicky in the 80's.

Made me smile how the final episode drives home how much it's really all about the parents, Nicky forever marked by the lack of love and approval from his father, finally realising his da thought of himself as a failure too, getting this amazing opportunity to show him that, no, the Jarrow March inspired people...and instead of a stirring moment of the old man emerging from his alzheimer's for a second or two, no, he just shits himself and babbles on about meeting the king. Some proper British bleakness there.

I can't imagine the joyriding crash scene with Pulp's Common People blaring out or the scene with James Bond triumphantly marching over the bridge to Oasis have aged well!

Discarding my personal feelings about those songs entirely, I think the "Common People" sequence does not work because it's not the kind of music the character would enjoy and not a lyric he could relate to, just a very lazy "well this is about class" selection. The Oasis song tho much as I hate it works beautifully I think, because I can 100% think of it as the kind of thing a boomer burnout like Geordie would vibe to while taking his walk thinking baout stuff.

With all the mentions upthread of it being "old fashioned" I think this mode - people's lives refracted through the History they live through - is something I really love, when done well. Is anyone doing this anymore? Are those This Is England things worth checking out? They seem more wedded to the idea of subcultures, which makes them seem less sweeping.

Ah shit that second para before the calzino quote should've been in spoiler tags as well, oh well, guess there's not too many who haven't seen and really want to.

I love the This Is England stuff but I wouldn't say it has that epic, sweeping quality. The closest is probably a thing called The Village which came out a few years ago. The original concept was to tell the story of a village and its inhabitants over the course of the 20th century. Sadly they only made two series in the end but those are both fantastic.

Then there's Heimat of course which is the German equivalent and one of the greatest films ever IMHO.