'Our Friends in the North' by Peter Flannery
24 March 2022
The 1996 BBC TV adaptation of Peter Flannery’s ‘Our Friends in the North’ would be one of my ‘Desert Island TV serials’ (see my review here in April 2006 for the others). It is an epic tale of the lives of four friends from the 1960s to the 1990s (and through them the recent political history of the country). Now Peter Flannery has adapted the story for BBC Radio 4 as a series of 45-minute radio plays, with the promise of a new final episode set in the year 2020, 25 years after the original series finale. I’ve only listened to the first episode (1964) so far but already I’m hooked. The structure, with most episodes set in the year of a UK general election and all featuring substantial doses of pop music from the year in question, nicely balances the personal journeys of the four lead characters from youth to middle age with the macro political context. ‘Our Friends of the North’ takes on the high-rise planning scandal in the North East, corruption in the Metropolitan Police, the miners’ strike and much more. But ultimately it’s a moving study of four friends, their ambitions and failures. I’m really looking forward to revisiting their stories over the coming weeks. You can listen to ‘Our Friends in the North’ at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015b7p
posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:37 pm
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