Scully

What links Scully, Dracula and Liverpool FC? Well, quite a lot in this channel 4 drama written by award-winning playwright Alan Bleasdale (Boys from the Blackstuff, GBH), originally broadcast in 1984.

Francis Scully is a fantasist tearaway - a Souse teenager who wants to become a professional footballer. But his dysfunctional family and 80s Merseyside life bring him crashing back to reality, as do his best mate Mooey and trainspotter brother Henry. Girl troubles and run-ins with the police pale into insignificance when he's forced to participate in the school pantomime. And why does he keep seeing his hero Kenny Dalglish...?

A Walter Mitty/Billy Liar type of character, Scully is outstandingly brought to life by Andrew Schofield (Sid and Nancy, GBH). With a solid supporting cast including Mark McGann (Shackleton, The Hanging Gale), Cathy Tyson (Mona Lisa, The Bill), Jean Boht (Bread), Sam Kelly ('Allo 'Allo) and Tom Georgeson (Between The Lines, Bleak House), Scully also features a memorable turn from Elvis Costello as trainspotter Henry (Costello also wrote and performed the theme song - Turning the Town Red).

Featuring the core Liverpool team who would go on to become League Champions later that year and win the 1986 FA Cup, Scully is more than a football drama; it captures the sentiments of working class life in Merseyside in the eighties and remains one of Bleasdale's most memorable dramatisations to date.

Special Features:

• Extract From South Bank Show on Alan Bleasdale (13 January 1985).
• Interview with Alan Bleasdale on Weekend (25 May 1984).