Blood brothers - Willy Russell writes entertaining drama and champions the socially disadvantaged

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“Willy Russell writes entertaining drama and champions the socially disadvantaged”

Discuss this statement with reference to blood brothers.

I will be looking into this statement and giving for and against evidence as to whether it is true or not and if Russell champions the socially disadvantaged. This could however be interpreted in different ways, Russell may be seen as sympathising with the lower class people who were generally looked down upon during that era and seen as the scum of the earth; he was possibly showing that these aren’t bad people by putting you into their lives. Others perceive that Russell purposefully portrays the middle class, for example Mrs. Lyons in a negative way. Soon I found after reading part-way through that both are ‘disadvantaged’ in one way or another. A good comparison between social ranks and classes are between Mrs. Lyons and Mrs. Johnstone or between Mickey and Edward; when this play was written people were ‘disadvantaged’ if they had some of the problems these characters have, Mrs. Johnstone can be classed as lower/working class; also she has a lot of children with little income coming in. she notes how hard she has to work by saying, “an’ me, I can’t stop havin’ them… I’m back on me feet an’ workin’ the next day y’ know.” She shows how she has to force herself back to work to make money even after the notoriously stressful and painful process of giving birth. At this point also she is speaking to Mrs. Lyons, she says “I can’t stop having them” in relation to a baby. Some perceive that this is Mrs. Johnstone’s psychological advantage over her as she may be classed as disadvantaged as she is infertile and cannot have any children. In many of Mrs. Johnstone’s scenes there are meant to be children running around everywhere making lots of noise, which eventually annoys the audience and we put ourselves in her shoes, thinking how she must cope with this constant racket and sympathise with her because of this. In contrast Mrs. Lyons seems lonely in the majority of her scenes, even her husband when he came had to rush off quickly, she seems to get her happiness from money.

Willy Russell’s background gives us an insight as to why he would be so interested in social class and the divisions between them. He was born into a working class family and as he grew up we noticed he tries his hand at a variety of different trades, many of which dramatically failed causing his to have to step back and review his status. In 1962 Russell left school to become a ladies hairdresser, only to soon return to school 7 years later as what they describe as a more ‘mature’ student. In his biography it quotes Russell saying how he “was brought up to see both sides of a question.” And he certainly did with blood brothers as it follows the story of both a middle and working class family through their day-to-day lives; I believe this is the reason he was so interested in the socially disadvantaged. Willy keeps us interested throughout the play, he does this with the fact this is a musical, the mood generally fitting in with the mood at the time of the play.

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There are many ways of seeing this apparent social divide, and all of them have plenty of evidence from within the text to support them. For example Mrs. Lyons’ ‘disadvantages’ like constant loneliness and isolation from close family; her husband who always has to dash away within moments of being there, which makes us question; is she really happy? Mrs. Johnstone picks up on this and innocently says when she hears that Mrs. Lyons husband will be along in a few months, “The house won’t feel so empty then, will it?” And later even Mrs. Lyons admits that the ...

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