Chris Darwin

A morality tale of xenophobia, religious prejudice, mob violence, poverty, and their effect on two children in Liverpool during the Depression. When a shipyard closes, Liam and Teresa's dad loses his job. Liam, who's about 8, making his first Holy Communion, gets a regular dose of fire and brimstone at church. Teresa, about 13, has a job as a maid to the Jewish family that owns the closed shipyard. The lady of that house is having an affair, and Teresa becomes an accomplice. Liam stutters terribly, especially when troubled. Dad comes under the sway of the Fascists, who blame cheap Irish labor and Jewish owners. A Molotov cocktail brings things to a head.

6.9/10
7%

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.

8.2/10

GBH was a seven-part British television drama written by Alan Bleasdale shown in the summer of 1991 on Channel 4. The protagonists were Michael Murray, the Militant tendency-supporting Labour leader of a city council in the North of England and Jim Nelson, the headmaster of a school for disturbed children. The series was controversial partly because Murray appeared to be based on Derek Hatton, former Deputy Leader of Liverpool City Council — in an interview in the G.B.H. DVD Bleasdale recounts an accidental meeting with Hatton before the series, who indicates that he has caught wind of Bleasdale's intentions but does not mind as long as the actor playing him is "handsome". In normal parlance, the initials "GBH" refer to the criminal charge of grievous bodily harm - however, the actual intent of the letters is that it is supposed to stand for Great British Holiday.

8.6/10

Linda's out on her hen night, her fiance is out on his stag night. Linda is having major doubts about getting married, when both groups arrive at a club, to find the band fronted by her ex-boyfriend—and the love of her life—Peter. Linda has to decide: Does she stay and settle down, like her friends want her to, or does she chuck it all in and run away with Peter?

7/10

The second film in Terence Davies's autobiographical series (along with "Trilogy" and "The Long Day Closes") is an impressionistic view of a working-class family in 1940s and 1950s Liverpool, based on Davies's own family. Through a series of exquisite tableaux Davies creates a deeply affecting photo album of a troubled family wrestling with the complexity of love.

7.4/10
8%

Drama based on the case history of a Liverpool boy, Graham Gaskin, who spent most of his youth in care.

Alan Bleasdale's five-part series relates the further experiences of unemployed Liverpudlian tarmac layers Dixie, Chrissie, Loggo and Yosser, and their revered older friend, retired longshoreman and union leader, George Malone. As they struggle to make ends meet in a depressed economy, and to hold together their financially battered families, they are harrassed by the petty bureaucrats of the DHSS. But the lumbering investigational juggernaut is, both comically and tragically, guided by drivers with only a provisional license.

8.6/10