The blood brothers set was really quite realistic, to begin with (during the first half) it was a street of semi-detached houses which looked very real and the background changed from day to night which added atmosphere to the show. When the scene needed to change to an indoors scene, a decorated wall would be lowered from the ceiling and a table (to show the dining room), a sofa (to show the living room), or a crib (to show the nursery) would be pushed onstage dependant on what room it needed to show the cast were in. This may seem as though it would look silly and clumsy, but infact it was very effective and worked well.
During the second half of the show (when the families had moved to the countryside) the back wall showed an English field, and the street scene which had been set up for the first half changed around, so although it was still a street the set up of houses had changed, they looked very different and we knew that this was infact a completely different street in a completely different town.
Again in the second half objects were lowered from the ceiling and pushed onstage to suggest a change of scene this was particularly effective in the fairground scene which although was short looked very good indeed.
The actors could use the set well and it did not hinder their performance in any way.
I was not entirely certain of what period blood brothers began in, I think that it possibly began during the 60s, but Eddie & Mickey's costumes resembled that of children in war time England, and once they got to the second half of the play the costume was kept so simple that it could've been any era. And yet with Mickey's big brother Sammy donning a comical ‘status quo’ studded leather jacket during the second half, I got the impression that they must have been living in the early 70s, however I will not dwell to much on this aspect of the costuming as it is my own foolish problem of not having any decent knowledge of the dress sense of certain eras.
The costumes that the young Eddie and Mickey wore were actually very helpful in showing what kind of families they were from,. There was Eddie in a traditional English private schoolboys uniform (grey shorts, blazer and a cap) and Mickey, the child of a lower working class mother, in a pair of dirty shorts and a baggy ripped jumper. So worn infact that he could stretch it over his knees. The actors appeared to look comfortable in their costumes and if they weren't then they didn't let it show or hinder their performance in the slightest.
I think the costumes did fit the design concept of the set, as Mickey's mother seemed to fit in to the scene perfectly as a pre 1990s working class mother.
There were no spectacular lighting effects during blood brothers, but during the brief funfair scene they used coloured lights to reflect the happy and bright night time atmosphere of the fair. And little fairy lights were used to be the lights on cars in the night time background of Liverpool.
The stage was well lit and it was not difficult to see any of the action, lighting was used to show a change of location when the families moved to the country, when they were there everything seemed brighter and fresher.
There weren't a lot of sound effects in blood brothers, but a use of sound effects that I appreciated was when the young Eddie, Mickey and Linda were playing with a toy gun and only Linda could hit the target. When Linda did hit the target that she was pointing for (towards the back of the theatre) a tinny sound would come from behind the audience it was very effective in leading me to believe that she had hit the target.
The woman playing Eddies mother used her body very well to play her character, to begin with she was a very tall pretty looking woman with curly, long, tidy hair and she carried herself very gracefully. Then when she started to become paranoid her hair which was before so pretty and tidy seemed to be greying and was all out of place from the way she had it at the beginning of the show, she also had bags under her eyes as if she had been staying up all night long incase Eddies natural mother might come back to steal him away. Also the way she carried herself became a lot more stooped which was completely different to the way she was before. Towards the end of the show when it showed her descent in to madness, she seemed so worn and tired that her eyes seemed to be pushed open with cocktail sticks, she looked very gaunt and ill, this was a contrast to her beautiful features at the beginning of the show.
The man who played Eddie had a very young, innocent looking face, this helped him very well to portray his role as the 7 year old Eddie, I don't believe he used his posture and body to as much effect as the woman who played his mother, but I was absorbed by his performance because he really did get into his role and suited it so well, when Eddie began to cry in the scene where he almost kissed Linda it was so upsetting that it almost made me want to cry as well, even though the audience was meant to be concentrating on the partnership of Linda and Mickey.
All in all I would have to say that the woman who played Eddies mother was better than Eddie himself because she seemed to be really into her role and led me to believe that she really was that character.
I think that the audience really really enjoyed the show, because Blood Brothers is a very famous musical and many people love it, the turn out was quite hefty and nobody left with a frown on their face.
I think that the best part of the show was when Eddie and Mickey leave the cinema after seeing a pornography film as it is a more light hearted humorous part of the show and it had me laughing when Linda and her friend caught Eddie and Mickey impersonating the porn stars that they had just seen.
However something that I did feel needed improvement was the fact that almost every single song that was in the show ended up going into a rendition of a song with ‘you know the devils got your number’ in the lyrics, which I swear if I ever hear that god awful song again I will rip my ears off.
Word Count: 1474 this word count does not include footnotes, headers or footers