Bleasdale, Alan (1946– )

English dramatist. He gained a national reputation with the series of television dramas The Boys From the Blackstuff (1982), which portrayed the pressures and tensions of unemployment on a group of men. It was followed by GBH (1991), a psychological study of the leader of a city council in northern England. His stage plays include Having a Ball (1981) and On the Ledge (1993).

A Liverpudlian, he wrote several early plays including Down the Dock Road (1976) for the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where he was artistic director from 1977. His early Scully stories about an adolescent boy were adapted for television in 1984.