Our Friends in the North followed the lives of four friends from the industrial city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the northeast of England, between 1964 and 1995. Each episode was set in a year during this period, mainly those in which there was a general election in the U.K. This emphasized the serial’s primary theme: the relationship between people and power.

The four friends followed very different paths leading away from their shared working-class backgrounds in the mid-1960s. Dominic “Nicky” Hutchinson was a political radical, desperate to change the world and impatient with the restrictions and corruption of the political process. Mary Soulsby believed that the solution to these problems could be found in improving the mainstream parties and the system. In contrast, Terry “Tosker” Cox became a self-made businessman with little time for concerns beyond profit and pleasure. George “Geordie” Peacock had no interest in politics, but his life was constantly affected by those in power as he turned to crime and alcoholism.

The series had a tortured history before it finally reached the television screen. The author, successful playwright Peter Flannery, originally devised it in the early 1980s but the BBC hesitated to air it, as political drama was no longer fashionable. The corporation was also wary of legal action, as some of the plots affecting the characters were obviously drawn from real-life events. In the mid-1960s, Nicky worked for city boss Austin Donohue, only to discover that he corruptly organized housing contracts for a builder, John Edwards, who was aided by the Home Secretary. This referred to the scandal of the time involving an architect, John Poulson, the leader of Newcastle City Council, T. Dan Smith, and the Conservative Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling. In the late 1960s, Geordie worked in London’s red-light district of Soho for a pornographer, and was involved with corrupt detectives. This was based on true events involving the Vice Squad, and the anti-corruption investigation, Operation Countryman, in the 1970s.

The characters also found themselves in the thick of other events drawn from contemporary British history. Nicky joined a terrorist organization similar to the urban guerrilla group The Angry Brigade of the early 1970s. Tosker made money from the credit boom of the 1980s, and many characters were involved in the miners’ strike of 1984–85. Even the minor hurricane that buffeted southeast England in 1987 made an appearance.

“Seize the power” was the phrase with which Geordie teased Nicky. The series explored whether it is possible to obtain any kind of power over one’s own life, and posed this concern not only in the encounters with the police, organized crime, the Labour Party, or the political establishment, but also in the interactions between the characters and their families. Mary married Tosker after she became pregnant by him, but her real love was Nicky, whom she married in the 1980s, only to see the marriage founder over his coldness. Nicky and Geordie both had troubled relationships with their fathers, respectively distant and cynical and violently alcoholic, only to become just like them. Mary had problems with her angry, unhappy policeman son, Anthony.

Fascinating though the political plots were, it was the personal dramas that really engaged the viewer, as the show refused to provide easy answers to complex problems. The characters, viewed over thirty years of their lives, exhibit numerous personality flaws, and illustrate the difficulty of resisting compromise with society’s rules and restrictions, or one’s own worst tendencies.

This all comes together in the marvellous final episode, which is marked by scenes of intense beauty and emotion. These included Nicky weeping in isolation at his mother’s funeral and his doomed attempts to earn his senile father’s respect; Anthony telling Mary that she was not a good mother because “she was never happy”; and Geordie’s attempts to stop a father who is abusing a son. However, some hope is offered as well. Tosker is much improved by the love of a good woman, Elaine, and finally gets to fulfill his dream of playing in a rock band. Nicky and Mary put disappointment and bitterness behind them and resolve to be reconciled. Only Geordie, damaged by his years of drink and prison, cannot be wholly redeemed. The closing shot was of him walking past the camera over Newcastle’s famous Tyne Bridge, toward an uncertain future.

Our Friends in the North was both a critical and popular success for BBC2. The series was marked by strong acting from all four primary figures, as well as the actor Peter Vaughan who played Nicky’s father, Felix.