Blood Brothers

Willy Russell (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

144 Seiten

2025 | 2nd edition
Methuen Drama (Verlag)
978-1-350-38619-8 (ISBN)

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Willy Russell’s 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath.

After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London’s West End, as well as extensively touring the UK.

This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.

Willy Russell is a playwright and songwriter, and one of the most-produced writers of his time. His plays and musicals for stage and TV including John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert (1974), Breezeblock Park (1975), One for the Road (1976), Our Day Out (television 1977; stage musical version 1983), Stags and Hens (1978; filmed as Dancin' thru the Dark, 1990), Educating Rita (1979), Blood Brothers (1981; musical version 1983), and Shirley Valentine (1986). Rebecca Hillman is Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research and teaching concerns performance as political activism and agitprop theatre. She focuses on theatre made by activists and trade unions in Britain since the 1960s.

Chronology

Commentary

Socio-political landscape: Britain under Margaret Thatcher
Themes: class and identity, family, nature v nurture, superstition v materialism, economic hardship (including strikes, debt, unemployment, cuts to the arts), fate
Characters: Mrs Johnston, Eddie, Mickey, Linda, Mrs Lyons
Dramatic devices: twins as framing device, monologue, the play as musical & rise of the mega-musical
Design: lighting, sounds, costume, set, props
Similar works (kitchen sink drama, working-class originated theatre& TV)
Willy Russell: other works
Production history, including first performance of the play in a classroom and Blood Brothers productions across the world (eg. South African production, 2013)

PLAYTEXT

Notes to the play

Erscheint lt. Verlag	20.3.2025
Reihe/Serie	Student Editions
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	129 x 198 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
	Kinder- / Jugendbuch ► Sachbücher
	Schulbuch / Wörterbuch
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-350-38619-7 / 1350386197
ISBN-13	978-1-350-38619-8 / 9781350386198
Zustand	Neuware