Blood Brothers, by Willy Russell

Blood Brothers

The play ‘Blood Brothers’ was written by playwrite Willy Russell in

the 1980’s, which is also when it is set. It is based in and around

Liverpool and follows the lives of twin brothers who are separated at

birth and live apart, oblivious to each other’s existence. Micky stays

with his mother (Mrs Johnstone) who cannot afford to have two more

mouths to feed and (Mrs Johnstone) sells her other son Eddie to a rich

couple who are unable to have children. They meet up again and become

best friends growing up together. After dabbling in drugs, women,

robbery, guns and the counsel, they end up hating each other. Not

until the end when Micky is near breaking point and Eddie heading that

way, do they find out they’re brothers.

I enjoyed this play very much. It has a plot which slowly builds up

the tension and drama, starting off with the two brothers being as

happy as can be and builds up to the climax. It is a gradual crescendo

of tension and excitement as their lives get worse and worse as the

play goes on. The mood of the play distinctively changes around half

way through. After the audience is shown the end scene at the start of

the play the plot is quite light hearted and has some very funny

moments, like the conversation between Mickey and Eddie when they

first meet and the almost slap-stick scene where the children are

playing cowboys and Indians.

Then the play takes a turn for the worse (from the characters’ point

of view) and changes from a comedy-drama into an all out

tragedy-thriller. Even in the first half of the play there are moments

cut away from the cheerful and humorous atmosphere the children grow

up in, that remind the audience of Eddie and Mickey’s fate. These

moments usua...

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...ers die before they have even been

introduced to them leaves the audience anticipating throughout the

whole play. They want to know how it was that twin brothers died on

the same day at the same time? What circumstances befell them and

brought them to this? How is the mother to blame? …And the list goes

on.

‘Blood Brothers’ is a fantastically well written play; Willy Russell

really knows how to sustain an audience’s attention and keep them

captivated. This play really involves the audience with the characters

due to the effectiveness of Russell’s writing and the direction of the

play and we find it very easy to empathise with the emotions

experienced by the characters, which makes us care about what happens

to them. Russell and ‘Blood Brothers’ are highly successful at

building up dramatic tension and the ending is both shocking and

thought provoking.