The counsel estates were a hard place to grow up, Mickey growing up as he did meant that he had to go to a state school and had to adapt to the slang that was seen as ‘cool’ by his mates if he was to be accepted. Eddie on the other hand was expected to be polite to others and talk a certain way. If you didn’t have much money, which was the case for middle class citizens, you had to survive on the bear essentials. Mickey was always seen as a scruffy lad on stage that didn’t care much about his appearance or how he treats his things. Eddie has been taught to respect the possessions that he had and was always dressed smartly in nice, expensive clothes that were always kept clean.
Mickey’s mother wasn’t around much for her children, though she tried her hardest to bring them up as caring young people, she had to balance multiple jobs just to scrape by. One similarity that Willy Russell makes clear is that Mickey and Eddie are both kind, caring lads that don’t have any intentions of hurting those around them, or causing a lot of trouble. This is quite predictable of Eddies character who was given lots of attention and a good up bringing, but Mickey didn’t see much of his mother and was brought up with lots of brothers and sisters, so nurture doesn’t play a part in how their personalities grew, it was nature, it was their genes. ‘He was only joking. Sammy tell him you’re really sixteen. I’ll lend you the rest of the fair… SAMMY: Fuck off.’ Even then Mickey tries to make the peace. Where they grew up didn’t matter, it could have just as easily been the opposite way around, Eddie, even being bought up as upper class, could have been spiteful and naughty if that’s what was in his genes.
Willy Russell does his best to make the split between Eddies and Mickey’s lives as different as possible. For a start, the stage is separated into two different scenes. One side shows the interior of Mr and Mrs Lyons house, looking very neat and clean, whilst on the other half, the outside of Mrs Johnston’s house is shown being run down and untidy which makes a strong comparison. Even the actors on stage give the audience a strong distinction to which boy is which as Eddie is given an ‘upper class look’ which is tidy, clean clothes with a slick hair style. Mickey styles the ‘middle class look’ being scruffy clothes and hair, with rips and holes all over his outfit. He makes their accents dramatically different so that the point is made about the ‘nurture’ side of things. During the play the audience are only reminded how the boys are such opposites when a question of intelligence comes up which shows how smart Eddie is, or when Eddie gets confused about the world he’s never been introduced to, Mickey’s world of constant game playing and new words that aren’t in the dictionary. ‘You say smashing things don’t you? Do you know any more words like that? MICKEY: Yeh yeh, I know loads like the ‘F’ word. EDWARD: What does it mean? MICKEY: I don’t know, it sounds good though, doesn’t it?’ It is only then that the realisation of the whole thing comes back into our minds, the difference between them because of nurture, and how fate takes them both.
Its strange how the adults do as much as possible to stay away from one another, as they don’t believe people like themselves should mix together, but the two boys both wish to be like each other. Mickey wants to be jus like Eddie and have nice clothes and to use ‘big words’, ‘I wish I could be like, ear clean clothes, talk properly like, do sums and history like, my friend’ but Eddie wants to be like Mickey and be scruffy and use cool slang words. ‘I wish I could be like, kick a ball and climb a tree like, run around with dirt knees like my friend.’ To them, everyone is equal, they don’t see that there should boundaries to who you can be with and what you can do.
Even though Eddie was taken away from his birth mother, later in life when they are re united, without Eddie’s knowledge, they begin to bond almost straight away. There is always a closeness that lingers between them. ‘MRS.J: What y’lookin at? EDWARD: I thought you didn’t like me. I thought you weren’t very nice. But I think you’re smashing.’ It doesn’t mean to say that adoptive parents love them any less, or can be any less close to the child, as Eddie shows much compassion for his mother, and it is obvious that he loves her very much, genetics aren’t that important when it comes to a parent-child relationship.
The actors had to make sure that the audience saw two different sides to Mickey and Eddie. The side that showed them as lads, both equally innocent and energetic, and the side that showed them as adults, after Mickey had been in prison, and Eddie when he came home from university. This was when Mickey had been thrown into the ‘real world’ and was forced to grow out of their childish games and dreams as he now had a family to think about and the worries of never finding a job or bringing home food. Eddie on the other hand had no worries. He was living in a false world of parties and new experience, again, very different to how Mickey’s life was.
Once again, it was because of the amount of money they had that was the reason for how the boy’s lives ended up. If Mrs.Lyons hadn’t chosen Eddie, Mickey could have been the twin coming home from university to his loving family and job offers around every corner. Instead it was Eddie who was given the head start in life, and the opportunities that wouldn’t have been available to him if it weren’t for his parents.
Nature gave the boys both warming personalities and made them sensitive and kindhearted. They both enjoyed playing the same games and the same taste in girls! It was because of their genes that Mickey and Eddie had so much in common when it came to their likes and dislikes, no matter how much money you have or where you live can change that.
Willy Russell uses a great device during the play. He uses dramatic irony, as even right from the beginning of the play, the audience know that the twins die, because of how the stage is set. Two bodies are laid out and the narrator explains how the twins were given away and how they came to die. The narrator plays and important part in the play, as he is the one who helps explain what is happening telling us things that help us understand and letting us into secrets we’re not supposed to know. The narrator is always lingering around as a depressing, ghostly figure that is a constant reminder of what the story is truly about, and what it is leading up to. ‘An’ did y’never hear how the Johnstones died, never knowing that they shared one name, till the day they died, when a mother cried, my own dear sons lie slain.’ Even through the lighter hearted scenes and through the jokes, we, as the audience, know at the back of our minds that all of that is the lead up to the break down of Mickey’s and Eddies relationship.
The songs during the story also play a major part to the dramatic side of the performance. Will Russell uses some of the songs repeatedly throughout the play to help the scenes along and also for a very effective way of showing the casts emotions. Mrs.Johnstone opens the play with the song about Marilyn Monroe, which takes the audience step by step through her life so far, taking us right up to the point where she finds out she’s carrying towns. The very first couple of lines are sad and depressing, which is part of the explanation to the boys death, ‘tell me its not true, say its just a story’ which is when the narrator follows on. After that, Mrs.Johnstone comes in with the first part of the Marilyn Monroe tune, which is joyous and upbeat. ‘He said my eyes were deep blue pools, my skin as soft as snow, he told me I was sexier then Marilyn Monroe, and we went dancing..’ As the story goes on, this song becomes sadder, fitting in with the tense action on stage. ‘And when we went to visit him, he didn’t want to know, it seems like jails sent him off the rails, just like Marilyn Monroe, his minds gone dancing, cant stop dancing.’
Maybe the biggest comparison between the two boys lives is made when Mickey and Eddie play a prank on a policeman and are taken home, but when Mickey is taken back, the policeman is rude and takes a sharp tone to his Mrs.Johnstone warning her that the next time it happens there will be big trouble. ‘Well. There’ll be no more bloody warnings from now on. Either you keep them in order, Missis, or it’ll be the courts for you.’ When Eddie is taken home, the policeman addresses his father in a completely different way. Mr.Lyons invites him in, and the situation is described as a mere prank, and the policeman advises Eddies father to keep him away from ‘the likes of them’ meaning, of course, the children from the counsel estates. ‘An’er, as I say, it was more of a prank really Mr.Lyons. I’d just dock his pocket money if I was you. (Laughs)’Willy Russell, throughout the play, tries to compare each middle class scene with how the upper class half live. It isn’t done in every scene as it would have been too much, but the scene with the policeman is a real hit with reality, and with jokes set aside for that moment in the play, the audience can see just how unfair the people with less money were treated. As Willy Russell says, ‘the only time I allowed myself to do that was in the scene with the policeman. I thought for that tiny scene, if I only I did it once, it would be very effective.’
Making the ‘Blood Brothers’ a tragic comedy helps the characters to some alive. They joke and they have a laugh about the times they live in, when even they know the truth that there was no way out for them. By doing this, it makes the characters more believable and real. His point was made more strongly through comedy. The nature vs. nurture debate that Will Russell uses for the story is quite one sided, as it isn’t really a believable debate as the contrasts, although effective, are also a bit far fetched. He comes down on the nurture side hard and does seem to side very much with the middle class side of life, making out that the upper class citizens were all the ‘badies’ in the play, not to many of the critics liking at the time.
If you have enough money, you don’t need to worry about bills for simple things like food, or paying the milkman, but when you need every penny you can get, like Mrs.Johnstone, you haven’t got the financial comfort that you need with eight children, which is why she is so superstitious. She uses luck to get through life, and blame all of her problems on. Mrs.Lyons takes advantage of this and is how she persuades her to give away her baby, and then again to keep her away from Edward. It comes down to the money issue, and how much you can afford to lose, in Mrs.Johnstone’s case, she is bought off and can’t realistically afford to say no to the offer from Mrs.Lyons’s to stay away.
Though it may be a sad reality, during that time, even peoples standards for their own lives were based on where they lived. Their own hopes and aspirations, curved to where they thought the boundary for their success lay. It was as if they could only do as well as others saw fit for them. Nowadays, everyone decides his or her own future. No matter what their background is, with the right amount of determination, goals can be reached, it doesn’t matter anymore about how much many you have or what area you can afford to live in.
