I was looking forward to seeing this show, which I last saw in 2022, and wondered what someone else would do to it. As it happens it was basically the same production but with a few small changes. What hadn’t changed, however, was that the story is told in flashbacks, the opening scene depicting the first responders removing the bodies of the Blood Brothers, twins Mickey, Josh Capper, and Eddie, Joe Sleight, after they had been shot dead. The tale is related by a Narrator, Scott Anson, who does it in rhyme and takes us straight back to the 1950s with Teddy Boys and Rock’n’Roll.
The cast with Mrs Johnstone, Vivienne Carlyle dancing with her husband
The story is of Mrs Johnstone, played by Vivienne Carlyle, a working class woman in Liverpool struggling to make ends meet, and who gets pregnant ‘just by shaking hands.’ Her husband leaves her when she discovers that she is ‘in the club’ again, this time, it transpires, she is expecting twins. She is employed as a housekeeper by a rich couple who cannot have children but the wife, Mrs Lyons, played by Sarah Jane Buckley, is desperate for a child, even considering adoption, but her husband, played by Tim Churchill, is against this course of action. When she hears of Mrs Johnstone’s condition, she persuades her to sell one of the twins to her. Conveniently Mr Lyons is abroad on business for nine months so she updates him on the progress of her phantom pregnancy by post.
Vivienne Carlyle as Mrs Johnstone with Narrator, Scott Anson
The rest of the show examines the question of what makes a person, is it nature or nurture. Is it the same set of DNA in two boys which decides their fate, or their upbringing. It is definitely a work of its time, the end of 1981 and the beginning of the Thatcher Years, when the country was bitterly divided on class lines. Because she feels that Mrs Johnstone is becoming too attached to Eddie, the baby she has given to Mrs Lyons, she was given the sack, which pushes her into deeper poverty. The Lyons’ business, however, is doing well and merging with another.
Mickey, played on the night by Josh Caper, and Eddie, Joe Sleight becoming Blood Brothers.
The two families live either side of a park where Mickey, the twin Mrs Johnstone kept, telling everyone that the other had died at birth, was forbidden to go, as was Eddie. They did end up meeting when Mickey and his mates ignored the ban to play cowboys and Indians, and became good friends, solidifying their relationship by cutting their hands to become blood brothers. When the mothers learned of the friendship the Lyons family moved away to the country. Time passed and the street where the Johnstones lived was earmarked for demolition at which time they were rehoused in the new town of Skelmersdale, built outside the city. You guessed it, close to the Lyons.
Eddie, Joe Sleight, Linda, Gemma Brodrick and Mickey, played on the night by Josh Capper in ominous pose at the fun fair
The boys met several more times over the years, even though their paths kept diverging, until, when they were young men, Mickey, who was unemployed by then and married to Linda, Gemma Brodrick, a childhood friend of both the twins, was sent to prison for being involved in a botched robbery with his brother Sammy, during which a gun was fired.
During his incarceration Mickey was diagnosed with clinical depression and put on a course of tablets, to which he became addicted. This affected his ability to have proper feelings toward people, so his relationship with Linda suffered on his release. He became jealous of Eddie and Linda, who were just good friends, but Mrs Lyons had told Mickey they were lovers, and went to the Town Hall, where Eddie, now a town councillor, was in an open meeting. Mickey drew a gun and pointed it at Eddie whilst he tried to calm the situation. During the conversation the police arrived and told Mickey to put down the gun. Mrs Johnstone had also turned up after hearing about the siege, and tried to bring it to an end by revealing that they are twins. The police open fire and both men are killed, which fulfilled a superstitious prophecy made by her when giving Eddie to Mrs Lyons, that if twins who are separated at birth learn the truth, they will both immediately die.
Narrator, Scott Anson and Mrs Lyons, Sarah Jane Buckley
Even though I had seen it before, this musical is still very powerful although does have a few faults I didn’t notice the first time. The main one being that the Narrator, in the very first lines of the poem, says, ‘Did you hear the story of the Johnstone twins, as alike each other as two new pins’. This was repeated later but they were nothing like identical, and, had they been, they would have surely guessed their relationship. Also, in scenes where the Lyons’ house exterior was involved, it was not the large detached it should have been, but a first floor tenement on the opposite side of the slum street from that of the Johnstones. I realise that the logistics of portraying it accurately would be prohibitive, and the air of superiority conveyed instead by Mrs Lyons and the subsequent owner, looking down on the Johnstones from the upper floor, but it was odd.
Those niggles aside, being a Virgo has its drawbacks, the show was really well performed, which it should have been after touring for all this time, although I found that in the quieter scenes, the strength of the singing voices of Vivienne Carlyle and Sarah Jayne Buckley, to be not as powerful as in others.
The cast waving their P45s
The actors who played the twins, Josh Caper as Mickey and Joe Sleight, Eddie, were superb, taking them through childhood to early middle age seamlessly, by the use of very little make-up but adjusting their movements very effectively. Their childhood period was hilarious, capturing the spirit of the 1950s making me feel as though I knew Mickey from my primary school and slum-dwelling days of that time.
Linda, the hapless friend of Mickey, and then both twins, was again superb. She morphed from tomboy through schoolgirl to womanhood very subtly, especially during adolescence when she wanted to be Mickey’s girlfriend but he didn’t read the signals.
The songs were all evocative of the time with the recurring theme of ‘Marilyn Monroe’ comparing the film star’s life to that of the characters, from sex bomb to drug addict and untimely demise. The big finish, ‘Tell Me It’s Not True’, sung incredibly emotionally by Vivienne Carlyle in her more powerful voice, brought the audience to its feet, and tears to its eyes.
The cast at the big finish
The remaining actors played multiple parts. I had forgotten the great line in which the milkman, who had just refused more credit to Mrs Johnstone, minutes later was, still in white coat, treating her in the hospital. When she asked, ‘Aren’t you my milkman?’ he replied, ‘Not any more, I gave it up to become a gynaecologist!’
I was very impressed by this show the first time, and it did not disappoint, although, understandably, the shock factor was lost due to the familiarity. I really do urge you to see it. It is not very often that all of the elements present in this production work so well together, but they do here.
Blood Brothers by Willie Russell, Directed by Bob Tomson and Bill Kenwright runs at Leeds Grand Theatre until 7th December. To book, please go to https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/blood-brothers-2024/ where you will also find a trailer.
For details of other dates on the tour see https://www.kenwright.com/productions/blood-brothers-uk-tour/
For other shows at Leeds Heritage Theatres please go to https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/
Feature Image from Leeds heritage Theatres. Photographs by Jack Merriman
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