10:55am Thursday 23rd February 2012
By Nigel Wilson
WILLY Russell’s Blood Brothers was recently described as the best British musical ever made on The Story of the Musicals on BBC4 – I have seen the show on four previous occasions…
Brothers Mickey (Sean Jones) and Eddie (Matthew Collyer) are separated at birth with their mother Mrs Johnstone (Maureen Nolan) giving one of them away to her employer the childless Mrs Lyons whose house she cleans whilst Mrs Johnstone and her several kids are from a working class family struggling to make ends meet, whilst Eddie is welcomed into the ‘Lyons’ middle -class home with all the luxuries that go with it.
Mickey and Eddie become best friends from the age of 7 or as it was ‘I am nearly 8’ through to their early thirties riding make believe horses, playing with toy guns and catapults and going through the challenging adolescent years involving girls especially Linda (Kelly-Anne Gower) Mickey’s girlfriend.
The performance of both brothers was outstanding at times hilariously funny at others reducing you to tears; Linda is a strong character who has been involved in a number of other productions returning to Blood Brothers.
Mrs Johnstone (Maureen Nolan) may be better known these days for her appearances on Loose Women, however, when she sang ‘Tell Me It’s Not True’ it was beautiful – that lady still has a great voice.
There were a huge number of young students in the packed theatre who no doubt related to the sexual innuendo, the gap between the fortunate and the not so fortunate – given current unemployment levels and the country in recession it could have been 2012.
A fabulous show - runs until Saturday, 3rd March at the Bristol Hippodrome.
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