History and Place in Television Drama: Liverpool in Cilla and Boys From the Blackstuff

Abstract

This article explores historical representations of Liverpool in two television dramas: ITV’s Cilla (2014) and the BBC’s Boys from the Blackstuff (1982). It is concerned with the ways that television drama can both record and recreate places from the past. Focussing on two dramas set in Liverpool at formative moments in the city’s past, it considers the centrality of an evocation of place and specifically the space of the city to both series and the ways that television dramas that mobilise such a strong sense place can become intrinsic to the heritage and history of the places they depict.