In this missing link between "The Black Stuff" and "Boys From" - why this wasn't included in the DVD realease is a mystery - Pete Postlethwaite excels as the out of his depth Duggan and the piece has all the warmth and incisive writing you'd expect from Bleasedale. Responding to success of "The Black Stuff", the BBC commissioned Bleasdale to expand each character into a separate drama. The first of these, The Muscle Market, featured Pete Postlethwaite replacing Calder as the owner of the building contractors, and Alison Steadman. It went out under the Play for Today banner in 1981 as a stop-gap measure while Bleasdale finished writing the other five.

Danny Duggan, played by Postlethwaite, runs a failing building contractors, and resorts to sub-gangster thuggery to keep the business afloat. However, with the bottom falling out of the building game, Duggan finds that playing at gangster is only fun when you're on the winning side.