The narrator's role in 'Blood Brothers' is quite unusual. The convention of the narrator in most plays is such that they are usually brought on to introduce the next part of the play and then move offstage and the play continues. However, in Blood Brothers the narrator is a physical character and is on stage all of the time. At the beginning of the play the narrator says, "So did y' hear the story of the Johnston twins?" This indicates that he is the storyteller. His presence at every scene thereafter shows that he is telling us about that part of the story. The narrator is on stage all the time, watching the characters and often lurking in the background, and this makes him seem a sinister and threatening character, which contrasts with other plays where the narrator is usually neutral.
The narrator contributes to the dramtic effect in numrous ways. For instance let us look at the fact that the narrator enters at the side of the stage, and also at the fact that the narrator leaves and enters the stage at such times that it has an enormous impact upon the audinace;up to the extent that even when the narrator is not to be seen and is not there the audinace have this emotion in which they express that the narrator is omniscuent. For instance the play states the following “The devils got your number” this suggests that the narrator is becoming powerful, and the fact that he knows what’s going on that he is all seeing. The fact the past is not going to let Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyonsgo that easily. Aswellas that we see that Russell is using many dramtic effects such as, he lays the scene just like the well known play Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. In both plays we are told the ending by bthe narrator right at the start. For instance in the play BloodBrothers we see that the narrator states “And did you never know how the Jhonstones died,” straight away we are told that they shall die similarly we are also told this in Romeo and Julliet in which it says “where civil blood makes civil hands unclean” this again tells us that that they will die.
