G.B.H.

GBH G.B.H. is a television series from 1991 (I think), written by the incomparable Alan Bleasdale. It is, allegedly, based on the antics of one Derek Hatton, deputy leader of Liverpool City Council in the 1980s.

starring Robert Lindsay, Lindsey Duncan, Julie Walters, Michael Palin, and a host of other respected British actors, it was compulsive watching, and for ages I had a season pass set up on the Tivo to try and catch it on UKTV, but then we replaced Telewest with Freeview, and we lost those channels.

then I discovered that there was a boxed set of Bleasdale stuff released last month, and I put it on my Amazon wishlist, because we have not much money at the moment, and much to watch already.

flicking through the Freeview channels via the Tivo on Sunday night, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Wasn’t that Robert Lindsay in the official car? Yes! on More4, there it was, episode 1, and it had only started literally 2 minutes earlier. I hit the record button at speed, and set up the season pass.

we watched the first episode last night, and it is every bit as good as I remember. And now I’ll have to buy the set, because there’s no way I want to wait another six weeks till the end.

5 thoughts on “G.B.H.”

  1. I bought this on DVD last month :/ – saw it first time round and loved it, and it’s better still this time round. Lindsay, Palin and Duncan are astonishingly good.

    “I know where you LIVE!”

    1. it’s astonishingly powerful, isn’t it? I’d forgotten just *how* good it was. had never seen it, so ’twas a real treat for him.

      1. I grew up just outside Liverpool, was a teenager in the early 80s, and was very much aware of the Derek Hatton phenomenon.

        Lindsay’s performance isn’t Hatton though; Hatton was cold-blooded, a reptile. Like Murray, he didn’t necessarily believe any of the Militant/Trot stuff; unlike Murray, he had no chinks in his armour. Murray was warmer and more human than Hatton.

        The strange thing about Hatton is that he was simultaneously vilified and held up as a folk hero by the same people… one of the strangest political anti-heroes of our time.

        Deggsy’s in your game these days, anyway — after a stint working in PR and on local radio, he’s now chairman of a web design company in Liverpool. 😉

        True Hatton story (I’ve heard it from a couple of sources, one of them a copper) from his PR days – he was in his posh office on Pembroke St when he got a phone call.

        “You Derek Hatton?”
        “Yes”
        “That your Jag outside?”
        “Yes”
        “Watch.”
        A masked man smashes the windows in with a sledgehammer.
        “That’s for what you did to socialism in this city…..”

  2. Oh joy, joy, joy! For this I might even buy a TV.

    It also contains the best _ever_ Dalek dialogue line.

    Yes, I’m a Scouser and I absolutely despise Hatton. Oddly I was also banned from joining the Labour Party in 1991, as a suspected member of Militant!.

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