Blood Brothers is the story of twin brothers who are separated at birth. Mrs Lyons, a rich woman who can't have children of her own, persuades her cleaning lady, Mrs Johnstone, to agree to give away one of her baby twins in so her other children won't be taken into care by social services who have sent her a letter. The women agree that it should be their secret and no one else shall ever know the truth. The Johnstones are a "problem family" with little money and many mouths to feed, whereas the Lyons have plenty of money to lavish on their "son". But one key thing to be considered is that Mr Lyons would never have accepted the child so that is why it is done in so much secrecy.
We follow the brothers, Mickey and Eddie, through their lives and see how their mothers decision to give Eddie away causes tragedy. There is some comedy of the early years of the two boys lives as we see them playing in the streets. However, this only makes the climax of the play more shocking and effective towards the end of the play.
The set was simple and related to the themes of class and money. The stage had a row of houses on either side of the stage, the "poor" neighbourhood on the left, and the wealthy houses on the right. The upper floors of the houses were used to house the musicians, who could be seen through the "windows". However, it was extremely interesting to see the way the narrator had a control over the stage and always seemed present as if he was trying to stop the inevitable happening like at one point he tried to stop Mickey from going to meet Edward.
The acting was excellent, particular mention must go to Siobhan McCarthy as the boys’ mother. In this production, she is made out to have totally good intentions and is the heroine of the audience as she makes her constant references to her idol, Marilyn Monroe. Paul Crosby, who plays Mickey, was very convincing at playing a seven-year-old as well as the grown up Mickey.
I enjoyed Blood Brothers so much, the last 30 minutes of the play were gripping and I didn't look away from the stage once. It put me in hysterics, it made me cry, and think. I like to believe in a society where anyone can be successful with both ability and motivation, but Blood Brothers gives the depressing impression that wealth and class is everything. Eddie grows up to be a councillor and Mickey has a job in a factory and struggles to survive. Soon turning to crime to bring up his family.
Although the play is essentially "dark", especially at the moments where the narrator steps in to make a social comment on the goings-on, it has many funny moments. One especially is when the milkman turns out to be the gynaecologist and the hint of comedy to this play gives the whole stage show an edge over others.
The songs were very well sung even. The final song "Tell me it's not true" was a highlight for me, showing the emotion perfectly. The whole cast pulled of very good Liverpool accents making the play more credible.
Some critics say that Blood Brothers is overly sentimental and simplistic, but I disagree. The audience is made to feel like a friend of the family, and gets emotionally involved. And with this power over the audience, the actors were able to twist emotions from one extreme to another and this way cause the play to have much more of a desired effect on the audience compared to what I did in my own performance which was to make the audience feel separate to the actions on the stage.
I also believed that in my own performance I needed to use more stylised ideas and this was the main reason for the slow motion re-enactment of the death and also the number of freeze-frames and monologues that each character had would also create a large amount of tension.
The play uses a method of a flashback, which starts at the end, then goes back and tells the events that led to that situation. I used this same method in my own telling of the story as I believed it created the tension I needed to interest the audience straight away.
But if you like an honest story, simply but effectively told, I think you will love Blood Brothers. I know I did, but next time I will get better seats and I think I will enjoy it even more.
