Alan Bleasdale's first TV work, Early To Bed, released

  • Published
Alison Steadman in Early To Bed
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Early To Bed tells the story of a married woman who starts an affair with her young neighbour

Alan Bleasdale's rarely-seen first television work, Early To Bed, has been released by the BBC in a collection celebrating his screenwriting.

The 1975 drama, featuring a young Alison Steadman, was written by then-school teacher Bleasdale in four days for a BBC Two new writers strand.

The Alan Bleasdale At The BBC collection also includes the rarely-shown The Muscle Market and his best known work Boys From The Blackstuff.

It is available from the BBC Store.

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The Muscle Market features Pete Postlethwaite as a crooked business owner

Early To Bed - which also starred Doctor Who and EastEnders actor David Warwick - tells the story of a married woman who starts an affair with her young neighbour.

The Muscle Market, which has not been broadcast since it was first shown in 1981, sees Pete Postlethwaite as a crooked business owner.

The 1980 play The Blackstuff, and its Boys From The Blackstuff spin-off, were critically-acclaimed portrayals of Margaret Thatcher's Britain and featured Bernard Hill as the troubled Yosser Hughes.

The series famously saw the unemployed Hughes develop the increasingly desperate catchphrase of "Gizza job" as he searched for work, asking everyone he met including his professional footballer lookalike, Graeme Souness.

The controversial 1986 drama The Monocled Mutineer, which starred Paul McGann and told the story of a World War One mutiny, is also included.

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Boys From The Blackstuff's Yosser Hughes (Hill, left) was known for his "Gizza job" catchphrase

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The Monocled Mutineer was based on the life of World War One mutineer Percy Toplis

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Alan Bleasdale's last TV work was a 2011 two-part film about the sinking of the Laconia in World War Two

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