BBC4 are showing Our Friends in the North again...

I’d suggest a rewatch but people are a bit crap at them.

Anyway, watch this recap with Eccleston…

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Never watched this. Am keen to after seeing you rate it a good few times over the years.

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Rewatched the first three episodes. Just fucking extraordinary telly. As good as anything ever broadcast in this country.

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No idea why I missed this at the time but in the subsequent years I’ve always thought that I should have watched it. Well, if it’s on iplayer now might be the time to finally get it watched, only 26 years late!

The fourth episode of this - 1970 - is the best single episode of any TV programme ever made. Watch it, honestly, even if you can’t be arsed with the whole series. The cast is fucking incredible, and there are so many great storylines - corruption at the Met, government sleeze, gentrification and homelessness, consumerism, party politics, radical communism.

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Really enjoying this, first proper watch. only managed to catch bits and pieces when it first aired (would have been 13) but has always stuck with me. So many great performances - Alum Armstrong and Danny Webb in this episode

Can’t believe there hasn’t been more interest in this. Knew you were all plastic lefties.

Been thinking this week that this is probably the closest thing to The Wire we’ve ever had, in terms of the central moral premises, etc. Very different in ways, but also very similar ideologically.

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I’m watching it just don’t feel the need to document it here you massive Tory!!

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Just finished 1979 - Larry Lamb!

Just watched the last one, wow - can’t believe it managed all that in just 9 episodes. Final scene with Geordie and choice of song so perfect.

Just noticed there is a new episode set in present day as part of a recent radio dramatisation might go and check that out.

Mark Strong’s accent is pretty good, isn’t it?

(sorry to anyone from Newcastle who disagrees)

Is there any indication of how long this will be on iPlayer? I’m forcing myself to try and watch more decent stuff rather than rewatching the Office US for the millionth time, this seems like a solid choice

End of this week better get binging iPlayer says 9 months left

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Ta!

Finally finished this. Pretty good, huh?

Wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Some thoughts, which I’ll spoil in case anyone is planning to watch:

I was anticipating it being really kitchen sinky and all about small domestic stuff, but it actually goes off in loads of directions. I don’t know if it needed quite as much time spent on the intricacies of the Soho sex trade, but I guess as a way of covering the idea of corruption and how it all links back, it works. As someone said, it really is like the Wire in some ways for how it all looks at individuals and society all at once.

Thought some of it was a bit rough. You had to just roll with some big changes that didn’t always make total sense. Some of the writing was really stagey. Some of the accents and make up jobs were a bit dodgy. And Mary was too good for them pricks.

But yeah, on the whole, wonderful.

Cheers to @bugduv for pointing me in the right direction.

Something that occurred to me last night:

Is it implied that when Geordie abandoned his pregnant fiancé at the beginning, the child grows up to be Chris Collins?

I started rewatching this last week having seen it when it originally aired. I think I was probably a bit too young to fully understand it at the time but was very excited to see Newcastle on the telly. I remember some of the labour party stuff sounding exactly like my granddads ranting and that still rings true.

It’s great and most of the accents are pretty good. Christopher Eccleston gets the emphasis wrong on Bigg Market every time and Daniel Craig’s seems very forced in episode one but he gets better.

The biggest suspension of disbelief is that they are supposed to be 18/20 in episodes one and two - they’ve all got crows feet and receding hairlines! If it was made today they’d have different actors for the different ages, I reckon.

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