Blood Brothers: Acting Edition S.

This edition also contains a chronology; a full introduction; teaching notes, interviews with the playwright and actors, discussion of the themes and ideas for further work; a glossary of words and phrases, photographs from stage productions and questions for study.

Willy Russell was born in Whiston near Liverpool and left school at fifteen. He went through a succession of jobs before, at the age of twenty, he decided to take 'O' levels and 'A' levels and become a teacher. At about the same time he saw John McGrath's play Unruly Elements at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, and decided he wanted to become a playwright. His plays include: ONE FOR THE ROAD, STAGS AND HENS, EDUCATING RITA, BLOOD BROTHERS and SHIRLEY VALENTINE.

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Willy Russell's 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath.

After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London's West End, as well as extensively touring the UK.

This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.

Chronology

Commentary

Socio-political landscape: Britain under Margaret Thatcher
Themes: class and identity, family, nature v nurture, superstition v materialism, economic hardship (including strikes, debt, unemployment, cuts to the arts), fate
Characters: Mrs Johnston, Eddie, Mickey, Linda, Mrs Lyons
Dramatic devices: twins as framing device, monologue, the play as musical & rise of the mega-musical
Design: lighting, sounds, costume, set, props
Similar works (kitchen sink drama, working-class originated theatre& TV)
Willy Russell: other works
Production history, including first performance of the play in a classroom and Blood Brothers productions across the world (eg. South African production, 2013)

PLAYTEXT

Notes to the play