Blood Brothers

The Summer 2023 tour of Willy Russell's 'Blood Brothers' kicked off at Norwich Theatre Royal last night, an incredible 40 years after first opening on the West End stage. It ran for an amazing 24 years, clocking up more than 10,000 performances, and became the third longest running musical ever to play the London stage. And yet, despite it having visited Norwich Theatre Royal on at least four previous tours, I have to admit that I had never seen it performed before last night.
 
And what a moving and powerful performance it was. For those, like me, who had missed out on what can now rightly be described as a theatrical musical phenomenon, 'Blood Brothers' is the story of fraternal twins, Mickey and Eddie, separated at birth after their mother, who already had seven other children, is persuaded to give up one of them to her employer, the childless Mrs Lyons. And so, whilst Mickey remains to grow up on the working class streets of Liverpool, Eddie receives all the privileges of a middle-class environment, including a university education. The twist to 'Blood Brothers' is that Mickey and Eddie's paths cross again by chance, and a strong friendship is forged, during which the two become 'blood brothers'.

 
Directed by Bob Tomson and Bill Kenwright, the two-act musical takes us on an emotional three hour roller-coaster of a ride, during which we are led by the Narrator (played illuminatingly by Danny Whitehead) on a journey from the late 1950's to the early 1980's. We first witness the whirlwind romance between Mrs Johnstone (played with passion and pathos by Niki Colwell Evans) and her husband, and she sings of dancing, and having looked like 'Marilyn Monroe'. We later learn of her eighth pregnancy, and the giving away of one of the twins, and we follow the inter-crossing lives of the two boys, right through until their tragic demise some thirty years later, with a hearbreaking closing finale from Evans and the entire cast in 'Tell Me It's Not True'.