Twenty one years on and Blood Brothers - just as it did in it's Liverpool 1983 premiere - is still getting standing ovations. And rightly so.
Willy Russell's musical play about twin brothers separated at birth is a classic example of a show that gives you everything - laughs, tears, great songs, a fascinating story and wonderful characters. It has matured over the years into a solid piece of theatre with no dull moments and a story that fairly rockets
along.
Maturing with it is Barbara Dickson, the first creator of Mrs. Johnstone, the working class mother forced by debts to give away one of her twins to her posh employer. She now comes across as we would want all mothers to be, a well-proportioned, loving woman with heart and understanding. She still gives us the fun loving younger woman in the early stages but really comes into her own as the middle-aged, concerned Mrs. Johnstone. The voice, if anything, has improved with age. Songs like Easy Terms and A Light Romance are given special poignancy with her clear, sparing tones.
But this is not a one woman show and the cast for this visiting production must be one of the best assembled. Sean Jones add his amusing nuances to working class twin Mickey, while Drew Ashton is able to be both funny and moving as posh Eddie. Michael Southern, trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, is a vibrant Sammy, the bad working class brother. Keith Burns gives an operatic quality to the Narrator and Karen Barnes goes for broke in her mad scene as Mrs. Lyons, the woman who took the twin.
The show still punches all the right buttons with the audience and directors Bob Tomson and Bill Kenwright have discovered some new twists including a jolly little musical number to accompany a bus ride. The band under the musical director Richard Beadle was a knockout. Twenty one years? The show's so fresh it's as if it has never been away.
(Gail Campbell-Thomson)
