A play by Willy Russell - Directed by Carole Ashcroft and Helen Appleton

February 11^th to February 16^th 2008

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Synopsis

From the author of Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine, here is a tale of twin boys separated at birth. Seven years on, scruffy, streetwise Mickey is reunited with the well educated Eddie - but as a friend not a brother.

There is warmth and humour in the bittersweet story that tracks the crossing paths of these two young men. Teetering on of the brink of the class divide, they both fall for Linda, their childhood friend, but she can choose only one.

Two sons, two mothers and a secret blood bond. The hand of fate leads you through the commonplace and the extraordinary to a very dramatic and unexpected conclusion.

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Cast (in order of appearance)

Production Team

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Setting

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Acknowledgements:

The director would like to thank:

Wharfingers would like to thank Becky Maltman for kindly loaning a pram and Edward’s Theatre Company for supplying various other items.

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Who's who.........

The cast in rehearsals

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Reviews 

The Target
13/02/08

"Brothers at their best"
by
Patrick Carnwath

What an excellent choice of play Willie Russell’s Blood Brothers has proved to be for the Louth Playgoers’ youth theatre group, Wharfingers.

Under the challenging yet sympathetic direction of Carole Ashcroft and Helen Appleton, on John Holloingsworth’s sparse but atmospheric set, the youngsters are putting on a performance which succeeds in being entertaining, absorbing and moving.

The play, about twin brothers who are parted at birth but form a deep friendship unaware of their connection, was originally written for a Merseyside youth group before being expanded into the better known musical.

Its heady mixture of realistic drama and poetic morality fable, street language and rhyme, humour and tragedy plus social history, makes it a rich theatrical experience for cast and audience alike

The directors have obviously encouraged their actors to work hard at the very tricky scouse accent. Sophie Grundy, sounding as if she was born in Liverpool, plays Mrs Johnston, the mother of seven, abandoned by her husband. She wins our total sympathy as she is pressured by the rich childless young wife for whom she cleans, to hand over one of her new born twins.

Chris Stuart, as Mickey the twin she keeps, has an equally sharp ear for the accent and adds to it a bright stage personality and natural sense of comic timing.

Oliver Ewin is also engaging as Edward, the posh twin, awed by Mickey’s streetwise aura and vocabulary, so is Danielle Spence, cheekily cheerful as their female sidekick, Linda.

Billy Garrett-Miller takes over the role of Mickey, and Tom Smith, Edward, from teens to adulthood. Billy is passionately convincing in Mickey’s transition from matey optimism as he starts work in the sixties, to the seventies disillusionment of redundancy and deep resentment of his dependence on Edward’s wealth and power.

Tom gives Edward’s attempts to help his disadvantaged friend the right air of privilege taken for granted and well-meaning ignorance of the realities of working class life.

Lucy Cooper is touchingly torn as the older Linda who marries Mickey but is willing to take advantage of Edward’s influence even as her husband’s hostility to him grows.

The most difficult part is tackled with brave commitment by Natalie Kane as the rich wife, whose guilt at taking her cleaner’s child leads to paranoic mental breakdown and a shocking climax to the play.

The piece has a narrator, a one woman Greek chorus in the form of a female tramp, played superbly by Olivia Teanby. She had a look of Helena Bonham Carter playing Sweeney Todd’s pie-making friend and speaks her runic lines with a rhythmic clarity and controlled expressiveness I have rarely heard from a teenager.

The supporting group of children are fully involved in lively street scenes, authenticated by their nostalgic clothes. They are Sophie Bloss, Holly Champ, Alex Davies, Leane Firth, Abbie McRae, Kathryn Norton, Sam Pelham, Sophie Phillips and Kathryn Wells.

The Wharfingers’ hardworking and efficient backstage team is: Stage Managers, Helen Crawshaw and Sophie Skipworth, assisted by Gemma Rogers; Lighting Adam Barter and Ross Carrick; Sound Daniella Verity; Properties Jasmine Palmer and Catherine Stuart; Wardrobe Lucy Cooper and Rosie Whitcombe.

Adult support is provided by Tony Blackmore, Roy Hobson, Nigel Gay, Brooke Vickers, Androulla Boxall, Jane Blenkhorn and the set construction team.
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Compass FM

The musical version of Blood Brothers is considered one of the great successes of British theatre yet it was not always so. When it first opened in London it only enjoyed moderate success and closed after just six months. However five years later it returned to the West End and twenty years on is still drawing in the crowds. And over the same period there have also been frequent nationwide tours guaranteeing a loyal army of followers.

Over the last two decades I have seen the musical four times and was looking forward to my fifth with the Wharfingers Youth Theatre; the youth division of Louth Playgoers. However I was in for a surprise for this was not a musical performance but a presentation of Willy Russell’s original play written for schools and only later significantly expanded and adapted as a musical. Nonetheless this is an interesting juxtaposition for in the professional productions adults play the roles of children and here it’s role reversal.

The play highlights the divisions of class and revolves around the story of twin brothers separated at birth; one remaining with his poverty stricken single mother and her huge brood of children and the other sold, out of necessity, to a wealthier but childless couple. We follow the twins as they grow up and the course of life inevitably takes them in very different directions and yet their paths intertwine; first in friendship and then in hostility but without either ever knowing of their relationship until circumstances lead to a dramatic and tragic climax.

This production opens with an unaccompanied version of Marilyn Monroe; the only nod to the musical version that copyright allows, and in doing so Sophie Grundy is following in the footsteps of Kiki Dee, Clodagh Rodgers, Helen Reddy, Petula Clark, almost the entire clan of the Nolan Sisters and of course the Playgoers patron Barbara Dickson. The story unfolds with gritty realism and it is perhaps unfair, in a juvenile production, to single out individual members of the cast but Chris Stuart is particularly noteworthy as the young Mickey and his lament that he was not seven but nearly eight was a huge success and he clearly enjoyed playing to the audience. Olivia Teanby is equally notable as the Narrator and her sense of ominous foreboding looms large even when she is not centre stage.

These young players succeed in capturing the emotional torment that is emboddied within this play but if you have seen the musical version I wonder if you spotted the alternative climatic ending?