Blood Brothers - the musical

‘Blood Brothers – The Musical’ is based loosely on the 1844 novella ‘The Corsican Brothers’. It was turned into a play in 1981 by Willy Russell, and then developed into the Tony and Olivier Award winning musical three years later. The ‘Blood Brothers’ musical became the longest running West End musical. The first Australian production wasn’t until 1988 and starred Russell Crowe and Chrissy Amphlet in the leading roles. It has now been revamped and is being presented by the Metcalfe Theatre in the Empyrean Function Centre, 12 Lake Street, Northbridge until 4^th December.  The150-minute performances have curtain up at 7.30 pm, with matinees on Thursdays at 11.00 am, Saturdays at 2.00 pm and Sundays at 3.00 pm.

      As the narrator (Ian Toyne) explains, after her husband walked out on her and the children, the yet again pregnant and broke Mrs Johnstone (Amanda Muggleton) takes on a cleaning job for a wealthy, childless couple, Mr and Mrs Lyons. Barely able to look after one son, Sammy (Garreth Bradshaw) to her horror she finds that she is now expecting fraternal twins. Mrs Lyons (Sarah McNeill) is keen to adopt one of the babies, and hesitantly Mrs Johnstone agrees - being made to swear on the Bible not to change her mind.
      When the twins, Mickey (Simon Thompson) and Edward (Nick Maclaine) are born, Mrs Johnstone lies to her other children, saying that one of the babies, Edward, has died and gone to Heaven.
       Mrs. Johnstone continues to work for Mrs Lyons, but being jealous of her cleaner’s affection to the baby, Mrs Lyons fires her home help, who then wants to take baby Edward with her. Mrs Lyons invents a superstition, stating that ‘if twins who are separated at birth learn that they were once one of a pair, they will both immediately die’. Grief stricken, Mrs Johnstone leaves without the baby and refuses the offer of compensation.
       When, several years later, Mickey meets his twin Eddie ‘Lyons’, and finds that they share the same birthday, the two youngsters promise to become blood brothers. Mrs Johnstone petrified of them dying, chases Eddie away, threatening him not to come back.
When later the same day, Mickey goes to Eddie's home, Mrs Lyons in turn throws Mickey out. Eddie curses his mother, who realises that he must have learnt to swear from the lower class Mickey.
       Mickey and his new friend, Linda (Julia Hern), call at Eddie’s house. The three of them get into trouble and are caught by a policeman (Charles McCombe). Because of Mickey’s bad influence, the ailing Mrs Lyons talks her husband (Richard Mellick) into moving house. Mrs Johnstone gives Edward a leaving gift of a locket with a photo of Mickey and her inside.
       Not long afterwards, the Johnstone family are rehoused in the more pleasant surroundings of Skelmersdale, very near the Johnstones, and so the trouble starts.

Several cameo parts are played by Maree Cole and Tyler Jones.

Director, John Senczuk, has gathered a very strong cast that has a bucket load of awards between them. Although many of the main performers have proved themselves as actors, I was a little worried about their ability as singers. Fear not, everyone, without exception, had powerful drive in their voices coupled with the appropriate emotion. With around 20 brief songs, many with memorable melodies over the three hours show, the cast didn’t fade or lose their focus for a second. I noted that the rehearsal stage manager was Brad Tudor; he has directed some magnificent musicals at Kwinana.

The accents were generally very good, and the one exception was a little ‘multicultural’, but Liverpool is only a few miles from Wales and Ireland, so this wasn’t a real problem.
The production was filled with humour, with Ian Toyne adding a few witty twists of his own. The cast couldn’t have been better, all embraced their characters perfectly. Performing in his first major production was Simon Thompson, who totally rocked as young Mickey, a star for the future.

The choral arrangement and orchestration from musical director / pianist Jangoo Chapkhana was brilliant. He captured the light-hearted mood of the first act, with fun in every bar of the children’s music. Then in Act 2 he embraced the dark drama and tragedy. With his four other musicians, Tim How (keyboard), Ashley Arbuckle (violin), Robbie Pisano (bass) and Haans Drieburg (percussion), he managed to achieve a rich depth to the music; at times you would believe that there was a full orchestral accompaniment. The sound balance and design (Rohan Anderson) was superb – and the actors’ headsets all worked! Although the actors must learn to kiss each other, on the opposite side to the microphone. The lighting design (Aaron Stirk) was excellent, and helped create the many locations on the limited set. Sarah Bunting’s sound and lighting board operation was complex yet faultless.

The set (Jamie Davies) was a Liverpool back alley wall, with the wall and the ground painted – naturally - in ‘blood’ red. Four Marilyn Munroe posters were pouting at the audience, reminding us of the many similarities of the Johnstone’s life story and the sex idol.

The icing on the cake was the choreography by Anna Tsirigotis. It was inventive, very well learnt by the cast, and added a real excitement to the show.

I thoroughly enjoyed this musical, almost three hours of non-stop quality.