Blood Brothers

Location: The Phoenix Theatre

Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers is another great musical that is still appearing at the West End, over twenty years since it began at the Albery Theatre in July 1988.

But Blood Brothers’ story isn’t that simple, for it originally started out as a school play that Russell wrote, only being adapted as a bigger musical later and appearing on a Liverpool stage by the 1980s. The original show on the West End closed at the Lyric Theatre in 1985 having failed to find its feet. But it was second time lucky for this blockbuster story and its current run has brought with it a whole world of success.

The end scene of this tragic musical is also the very beginning – that of the harrowing sight of a Liverpool street as paramedics carry two men away from an unknown incident. To find out what happened, we go back in time and witness two boys as they grow up. We are introduced to the character of Mrs Johnstone, a poor woman who discovers that she is pregnant with twins. This is not the best of news, for Johnstone does not have a partner and the prospect of raising two boys on her own with her small wage is a haunting one. The solution comes from her employer Mrs Lyons – to raise one of them boys on her own and give the other to her. Her desperations means that she agrees to this proposition and the boys grow up not knowing that they are in fact brothers. They instead go through life as friends, but of differing social classes; one is wealthy, graduates from an Oxbridge University and lands a good job, whilst the other lives life poor, surviving off the dole and finding himself in prison. Eventually, enough is enough and a showdown takes place on a dark Liverpool street, where jealousy has led to one of the brothers confronting the other about his easy life.

If there’s anyone to thank for this production it is of course Willy Russell, but without the help of Bill Kenwright, then the day it closed in 1985 would have been its final bow. Due to its second chance, it has gone on to win a Laurence Olivier Award for Original Best Musical Production (the Laurence Olivier Awards being the Oscars of theatre world). It means that Willy Russell can hold Blood Brothers up as one of his great works alongside the similarly popular Educating Rita.!