The scene that I have chosen (Act One, Pages 36-38) shows the Johnstone families' poverty - and how the society at the time looks down on them. The policeman is also a prime example of this

Ian Binner A2 Page of

FIRST DRAFT

Analyse a significant key scene from the play commenting on the role of the characters, significant events, the themes and the language used.

Blood Brothers was first performed in 1983, and is set in Liverpool in the late sixties and early seventies. In Blood Brothers, Mrs Johnstone is a poor single woman living in a council flat in an industrial town in the heart of Liverpool. She has several children which she struggles to provide for. She continually buys more than she can afford – and fails to make the regular payments to pay for the goods, which are soon repossessed. She works as a cleaner for Mrs Lyons; a middle class married lady, who longs for a child. Later in the play, Mrs Johnstone discovers she is expecting twins – and knows she cannot afford to bring the two of them up. She tells of her fears to Mrs Lyons, who then asks – and pleads, with Mrs Johnstone to give her one of the babies. Mrs Johnstone is soon convinced, and when the twins are born, Mrs Lyons takes Edward and Mrs Johnstone takes Mickey. The play then moves swiftly on to when Edward and Mickey are seven years old – when they become friends. After discovering they were born on the same day, they become “Blood Brothers”. Both Mrs Lyons and Mrs Johnstone try and stop their child from playing with the other – and from then on, the storyline rattles on like a high speed train. In the climax Mrs Johnstone informs Edward and Mickey that they are in fact twins.

The play entertains the audience in many ways. The play includes a mix of comedy and tragedy which adds to the excitement. There is a unique storyline – and suspense is heightened with the subtle addition of singing and music. Along with that, the storyline is fast-moving, making it interesting and exciting to the audience.

The play also raises the issue of social class differences. Mickey and Edward are born to the same mother, identical in ability and in personality. They are then brought up in different social classes. Edward achieves well in life, because he was brought up by a middle class wealthy family. He goes to University and earns lots of money, working as a Councillor. Mickey, who was brought up in a lower class family by a single mother, is exactly the opposite. He had a poor education, worked for very little money in a factory before being made redundant. He is sent to prison for taking part in an armed robbery, where he starts taking drugs.

In the 1960’s Liverpool was probably one of the most class-conscious cities in England and the different classes did not usually mix – hence the strange turn of events that unfold in Blood Brothers. At the time that the play is set, a lot of the jobs at the factories and at the docks were going because the goods were being made much cheaper abroad. People out of work just collected the “dole” money each week to live on. When “on the dole” there was not much to do, and in Blood Brothers Mickey starts getting very depressed; ends up ...

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The scene that I have chosen (Act One, Pages 36-38) shows the Johnstone families’ poverty – and how the society at the time looks down on them. The policeman is also a prime example of this. He is hard on Mrs Johnstone – the single, lower class mother, threatening her with court summons, prison sentences and hefty fines. He also described Mickey’s actions as a “serious crime”. However, when he talks to Mr & Mrs Lyons, he calls what they were doing “just a bit of a prank, really” and is very friendly with them.

At the start of my selected scene the Narrator indicated the impending doom of what is to come. Linda, Mickey and Edward take it in turns to shoot at a statue in the park. Every time, Edward and Mickey miss and Linda hits the statue. Mickey then gets annoyed and puts the gun away. Linda suggests throwing some stones at some windows. As they are about to throw, a policeman appears and takes them away. He visits both Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyons and warns them about their behaviour.

The Narrator introduces the scene with a short song. His role in the scene is to show the theme of superstition: “There’s shoes upon the table, and a spider’s being killed” and impending doom: “the devil’s got your number, he’s gonna find y”. If I was the director of the play I would have the Narrator dressed in a smart suit to symbolise his importance, and his role as a storyteller or teacher. At the end of his song I would have a huge percussion build up using a variety of instruments, getting louder and louder, and then coming to a sudden stop. Simultaneously, I would have a sudden lighting change from the Narrator to the children on the street.

The next section of the scene involves the children shooting at the park statue with the air gun. This evolves a theme of violence in the play which continually crops up later on. Linda is delighted that she hits every time, and Edward and Mickey miss. This is a recurring problem for the two males later on in the play, when they have little or no success with guns. First of all, Mickey is caught taking part in an armed robbery and is put into prison. Then right at the end, Mickey accidentally sets off a gun, which kills Edward. The only real sound effect that is necessary is a realistic gun sound when they are firing at the statue in the park. When they are shooting I would put some red lights on to show the impending danger; and turn them off when the gun goes away, only for them to turn back on when they pick up the stones.

The following section of my chosen scene is the ‘throwing stones’. Their different classes are portrayed strongly here with the language that Edward and Mickey uses. Mickey uses incorrect English: “Ooh, I dare y’ Linda, I dare y’”. Edward uses standard and correct English: “I’m not scared at all, actually”. If I was the director of the play, I would make Edward and Mickey exaggerate their accents – Mickey as a strong Liverpudlian accent, Edward very posh and well brought up. The characters’ tone of voice would change at various key stages during the scene. I would ask the actor playing Mickey to lift his tone of voice considerably when Linda suggests throwing the stones to show his obvious excitement at the idea. When Linda says “Missed” she would say it gleefully to show her delight at beating Mickey and Edward. When Mickey says “I dare y’ I dare y’” he would say it eagerly, egging Linda on, and much more enthusiastically than his previous lines. When Edward says “No, I’m not scared at all” I would make him sound defiant and determined to ‘keep up’ with Linda and Mickey. For the appearance of the characters I would have Mickey with unclean, rather dirty, tatty clothes; rather untidy and unkept hair and perhaps some rips or dirt on his clothes. Edward would have very neat and clean hair and clothes, and would look very smart. I would have Linda very neat and tidy but still in some cheap clothes.

The penultimate section of the scene is when the policeman finds them just as they are about to throw some stones. The key element in this section is that earlier on in the play, Mickey and Linda had boasted to Edward about all the things that they had said to the policeman; “waiting for the ninety-two bus”, “Adolph Hitler” and so on, yet when Edward ‘shows off’ to them by saying these things to the policeman, they start crying because they realise they are in deep trouble – suggesting they may have exaggerated what they said they had said to the policeman before! The policeman would be dressed in a smart police uniform, equipped with a police-style black notebook. Edward’s voice would go slightly hysterical when he laughs at his words to the policeman; “waiting for the ninety-two bus”. As the policeman leads the children away I would have the lights gradually dim away to a blackout, and come up again gradually as we switch to the visit of the policeman to the parents.

The final section of my selected scene is when the policeman visits the two boys’ parents to reprimand their behaviour. When he visits Mrs Johnstone he is very much on-duty – he is hard and strong on her, and says that Mickey was “about to commit a serious crime”. He threatens her with court action – “either you keep them in order, Missis, or it’ll be the courts for you…”. Mrs Johnstone then sings ‘Maybe Some Day’ to some background music, before we see the Policeman seeing Mr & Mrs Lyons. He is very much “off duty”, with a drink in his hand and his helmet off – he is a lot more relaxed with the middle class family, describing the children’s actions as “more of a prank really” and refers to Mr Lyons as ‘Sir’, much more formal than the casual and condemning ‘Missus’ that he called Mrs Johnstone. The main reason he does this is to indicate society’s views on class at the time and the way the lower classes were looked down upon. If I was the director of the play I would make the policeman exaggerate his hardness to Mrs Johnstone and his kindness and civility to Mr & Mrs Lyons.

My chosen character is Linda. Her role in my chosen scene is to show her control and dominance over the two boys. She is always successful with the gun and is delighted when Edward and Mickey miss: “Missed!”. She seems to be the initiator of all the rule-breaking; she provokes the violence in the scene: “Lets throw some stones through them windows”. This is the first sign of the violence that brings the play to end in tragedy. This is because the friendship between Edward and Mickey weakens when they both start to love Linda. In my chosen scene, Edward and Mickey are just great friends with Linda; but as their love for her starts to grow, the links between the two boys become more and more dangerous. It is Mickey’s love of Linda that drives him to kill Edward because he thinks Edward is going to run off with her. In a way, Linda’s dominance over the two boys in my chosen scene, and the way Edward and Mickey just do whatever she wants, foreshadows what is to happen at the end of the play.

Conclusion

The role of the characters to represent their class, the themes of class and violence that are used and the different language of the characters all combine to make a hugely successful, exciting and unique play. Russel creates unique and contrasting characters to make the play very exciting. The effect on the audience

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