00:00What makes a place feel better off?
00:03It might be a secure job, a home you can afford, or simply being able to keep the heating on.
00:07A new stage version of Our Friends in the North brings a familiar story of political and social change back
00:13to Newcastle's Theatre Royal.
00:14We ask people how life compares with when the TV show aired back in 1996,
00:19and whether the promises of progress feel real in their own lives.
00:27I've lived up here 40 odd years now, and I would say it's definitely better.
00:33But I think people like my age have got free bus passes, and the metro is fantastic,
00:39but you're paying for a year of traffic.
00:42And a lot of discount shops now, more now than it was before, which you can choose.
00:50Ooh!
00:51Worse, Alexia?
00:54I think in terms of, like, jobs and work and infrastructure, it's worse.
01:01But in terms of things to do, I think it's better.
01:05There's a lot more to do in the North East.
01:07However, when you obviously put them two factors together, there's not as many jobs for people.
01:10You know, the dockyards have all died off, the industries have all died off in Newcastle,
01:14which is realistically 30 years ago.
01:16So that was the bread and butter.
01:17But when you talk about, like, activities to do and fun days out, there's a lot there.
01:21But again, when you put them two together, you're not getting the wages from the normal jobs,
01:25the industry jobs, so how can you go out and do the extra activities?
01:28The original BBC series, first broadcast in 1996, followed four friends from Newcastle through decades of change.
01:35The new stage production, Our Friends in the North, the Thatcher years, focuses on the time between 1979 and 1984.
01:43From the people we spoke to, nobody seemed to feel that the region's better off overall.
01:49Some people firmly believe things have become much harder for younger people.
01:53Official figures show the North East had the UK's lowest disposable household income per head back in 2024.
01:58Other that alone cannot settle how life compares to 1996.
02:05Well, now there's no very few apprenticeships and shipyards down and coal and all this.
02:12There are a couple of apprenticeships around, but not much of them used to be.
02:16So I say that getting a good trade, learning a good trade is a bit harder nowadays than it was.
02:23You listen to political news and you think, yeah, that's nothing new.
02:27It's what was said about 30 years ago.
02:29So it seems to be the same as we usually do.
02:32We dress it up in something new, in a new buzzword, but it's the same old stuff.
02:37So I did become disaffected with the whole thing.
02:41Our Friends in the North was a much loved TV show that shone a light on the issues affecting the
02:45region.
02:46And now with the Thatcher years, it does the same again for a new audience.
02:50The question it leaves behind though is bigger than the stage.
02:53How far has life in the Northeast really moved on?
