A successor to his earlier, 105-minute TV play The Black Stuff (1980), Alan Bleasdale's five-part series relates the further experiences of unemployed Liverpudlian tarmac lawyers Dixie, Chrissie, Loggo and Yosser, and their revered older friend, retired longshoreman, George Malone. As they struggle to make ends meet in a depressed economy, and to hold together their financially battered families, they are harassed by the petty bureaucrats of the DHSS. But the lumbering investigational juggernaut is, both comically and tragically, guided by drivers with only a provisional license.