Glasgow actress Vivienne Carlyle was back on home turf as she stole the show in Willy Russell’s powerful Blood Brothers.
On at The King’s Theatre until Saturday, the production which first hit the West End in 1988, is a timeless tale of wealth and poverty.
Carlyle plays Liverpudlian Mrs Johnstone, a woman full of dreams of being Marilyn Monroe, when real life interrupts and she finds herself with a house full of children and no husband.
To help keep afloat, she takes a wee cleaning job in a posh factory owner’s house run by Mrs Lyons (Sarah Jane Buckley) who has plenty of time on her hands to worry about not being able to have a baby.
When the two women talk and Mrs Johnstone finds herself pregnant with twins, they hatch a plot to resolve both their problems.
And so, one of the boys, Mickey (Sean Jones) stays with Mrs Johnstone in poverty, while Eddie (Joe Sleight) lives in luxury with the Lyons.
Both women vow never to allow their lives to cross again, but inevitably the boys meet while they play out and their world become complicated as they hit it off and become blood brothers.
As they grow up, they go their separate ways but are reunited through their love of the same girl, Linda (Gemma Brodrick) as Mickey’s life gets more desperate, while Eddie thrives.
Things eventually come to ahead when Mrs Johnstone is forced to tell the boys they are brothers and tragedy unfolds.
It’s a cracking plot told by the Narrator (Scott Anson) who is in the shadows spreading doom and never letting the audience forget the boys have been placed in totally different lives.
But as you would expect from Russell, there are plenty of laughs too and both Sean Jones and Joe Sleight clearly revel in their roles from small boys right up to awkward teenagers.
With a fantastic set from Simon Bannister and Ellie Carney, its action all the way and smaller roles are played well, with Sammy (James Ledsham), Mr Lyons (Tim Churchill), policeman/teacher (Alex Harland), Donna Marie/Miss Jones (Chloe Pole), postman/bus conductor (Graeme Kinniburgh), Perkins (Ben Mabberley), neighbour (Dominic Gore) and Brenda (Jess Smith).
The band led by Matt Malone allows some powerful musical numbers and all the cast have great voices.
It’s a brilliant show which deservedly received a standing ovation on the first night. For ticket information on the tour which moves around the UK and ends in Fareham in May, check out www.atgtickets.com.
Author Bio:
Rebecca Hay is an experienced travel writer and member of The British Guild of Travel Writers. Follow her adventures with her family on Twitter and Instagram @emojiadventurer and on Facebook via EmojiAdventurers2.
Photographs by Jack Merriman
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