Theatre Review: Blood Brothers, Liverpool Empire Theatre
Jan 3 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post
Bloodbrothers
IN the quarter century since it was premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse, Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers has been polished and honed until it returns shining bright.
It was always a big show but now it is spread out like an epic with an overture, opening tableau and scene-setting all taking time before the tale itself gets under way.
The Liverpool skyline backdrop tells us where we are – and effective it is, too, if slightly peculiar for those with a knowledge of city architecture – and a terraced street with Kop and Everton chalked on the walls underlines that setting.
It is Liverpool in the 1960s where money was tight for many and Mrs Johnstone, working as a char, can feel the financial pinch so much that she can give away one of her newborn twins to her employer just to save expense.
The twins grow up and as many who know and love the show so well will already understand, it all ends in bitter tragedy.
But the journey there is what makes the show work, drama indeed when the debt collectors come calling on Mrs Johnstone but comedy too as the kids play cops and robbers in the street.
And there are always Russell’s magnificent songs, here sung by a company who have worked the show before and know just where to place the emphasis.
Lyn Paul is a glorious Mrs Johnstone, almost ageing before our eyes as troubles take their toll, but always able to deliver in a strong voice numbers like the moving ballad Easy Terms and ultra-catchy Marilyn Monroe.
Sean Jones goes on an emotional roller coaster ride as the working class twin Mickey, while Mark Hutchinson plays posh twin Eddie with deadpan ease and a sense of comic timing. The narrator of Keith Burns is pretty frightening these days, delivering his prophesies of doom with an exaggerated stage echo, and Vivienne Carlyle does a nice line in inner torment as the posh woman who brings up another woman’s child, always fearful of discovery.
The music, directed by Tom de Keyser, is dramatic and often loud, while the musical still conquers all and last night received its now regular standing ovation.
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