Click here to watch the episode of Bread discussed in this show on YouTube
This week we're heading to Liverpool to revisit Bread, Carla Lane's hugely popular BBC sitcom about the Boswell family. First broadcast in 1986, Bread became one of the defining British sitcoms of the decade, following formidable matriarch Nellie Boswell and her Catholic, working-class Liverpool family as they navigated love, money, unemployment and an impressively creative relationship with the DHSS.
We're focusing on Series 1, Episode 6, first broadcast on 15 June 1986, and there's an extraordinary amount going on.
Joey is dealing with his father's gambling debts—and some men with a suspicious interest in fur coats—while Adrian loses his job, Jack handles stolen goods and Billy discovers that his girlfriend Julie is pregnant. Their discussions about abortion, marriage and finding somewhere to live give us a glimpse of some very real pressures facing young couples in 1980s Britain.
Meanwhile, Aveline gets her topless photographs published, Grandad struggles with depression and the Boswells continue their elaborate attempts to stay one step ahead of the benefits system.
We look at the sitcom's portrayal of working-class Liverpool, Catholicism, unemployment, benefit fraud and petty crime, and ask whether the Boswells are affectionate comic creations or part of a much less comfortable tradition of stereotypes about people living on benefits.
Has Bread aged surprisingly well—or does its politics look very different nearly 40 years later?
Then it's off to Culture Corner, and this time we're going properly 1986.
We're flicking through an original Smash Hits to discover the pop gossip, celebrity nonsense and surprisingly serious nuclear-war debate occupying British teenagers that year. We revisit the UK Top 10 singles from the week this episode aired and then take a dangerous trip into the 1986 Argos catalogue to see what Britain apparently considered the height of domestic sophistication.
Come for the Boswells, stay for the 1980s home furnishings.
On with the show, la!
GAZER HOMEWORK: Next week we focus on the film 'A Taste Of Honey' from 1961. Click here to watch on YouTube
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