Blood Brothers
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre
★★★☆☆
You have probably heard the adage about Chekhov’s gun on the mantelpiece, but have you heard about Russell’s revolver under the hallway rug?
In Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers the pistol doesn’t make an appearance until the end of the first act. A pall of inevitability hangs over the perennially popular folk musical from the very first moments, however, as a shadowy scrim is lifted on two dead bodies and a mournful saxophone sings an ominous lament.
In his opening rhyming monologue, the narrator (Kristofer Harding), who might well be the devil himself, sets both the historical scene and the story’s end in motion. Russell has no interest in surprising us with his revelation about the ingrained fatality of structural poverty. The British class system makes the story of families like the Johnstones inescapable.
Russell is the Shakespeare of the 1970s and 1980s: a dramatist of the working people, whose plays highlight the challenges of making a life in a system designed to keep you down. Strong women are key to his most famous plays, in particular the 1980 drama Educating Rita (commissioned, incidentally, by the Royal Shakespeare Company) and Shirley Valentine (1986). Blood Brothers was written between these two shows, and also features a dogged housewife determined to better herself, though she is not quite the star of the show. It is her sons, Mickey (Seán Jones) and Eddie (Joe Sleight), who are the real protagonists, the titular fraternal heroes. Mrs Johnstone (Rebecca Storm) already has seven children by the time they are born, and she is manipulated into selling one to the infertile Mrs Lyons (Laura Harrison), who employs her as a cleaner. As Russell charts the boys’ development through childhood into adulthood, he asks us to consider whether arguments around nature or nurture are perhaps not as significant as social inequity.
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This is a well-oiled touring production, featuring actors who have starred in Blood Brothers many times before, most notably Storm, who first performed as Mrs Johnstone more than 40 years ago. The action moves confidently across Andy Walmsley’s brick-backed set, whose graffitied walls add specificity to the Liverpool setting, as the actors do too, with Blood Brothers stalwarts Jones, Sleight and Brodrick distinguishing themselves even among a uniformly excellent cast.
If the second act drags, it is not the fault of directors. The musical elements – which are overly reliant on repetitive motifs and limited lyrical images – start to lose their charm, the constant reminder of the plot’s political themes gets tiresome, and the dramatic reveal by dumb show is clunkily handled. Even so, the climax when it comes – with that strongly signalled shooter finally taking centre-stage – manages to make it shocking.
“Do we blame superstition for what came to pass?” the narrator asks us again as the curtain falls on the ruined lives of the Johnstone family. Russell doesn’t need to give us an answer, but he just can’t help himself.
Blood Brothers runs at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, until Saturday, March 7th
