Skip to main content

BLOOD BROTHER'S REVIEW

On the 3rd of February 2022, the actors, film students and makeup artists went to see a performance of Blood Brother's at Darlington Hippodrome theatre. Here is my review of the performance.

THE PLOT:
'Blood Brother's' is a play written by a Liverpudlian playwrite, Willy Russel. Set in 1960's Liverpool, this play tells the story of two fraternal twin brothers, Michael and Edward who are separated at birth. They both go on to live very different lives, in two completely separate environments. 

Michael, also known as Mickey, is brought up by his biological mother Mrs Johnstone. Mrs Johnstone is a single mother, and struggling financially, hence why she had to give Edward up. She is also raising seven other children, and they live in a poor part of Liverpool. However, Edward's life is very different. Edward (or Eddie) is raised as an only child, to Mrs and Mr Lyons. They live near by in a wealthy area of Liverpool. 

Mrs Lyons was unable to have her biological children; though she was happy to adopt a child Mr Lyons refuses. While Mrs Johnstone is working as a cleaner for Mrs Lyons, she persuades her to give up one of her children. 

For many years, Mickey and Eddie did not meet- until one fateful day when both boys were seven years old. Immediately, they became best friends- or 'blood brother's'. Despite the fact they have to go behind their mother's backs to remain friends, their strong bond continued through childhood and teenage years when they moved away. Regardless of their strong bond, the difference in their upbringing tears their friendship apart which spirals and eventually leads to their tragic deaths.

CONTEXT:
This play was written during a time of vast changes in society and politics too. The show impacts the audience as it demonstrates the immense and detrimental ramifications that social inequity has on people, and especially children and their behaviour. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

UAL PRINCIPLES OF PERFORMANCE - OPENING DOORS

Welcome to my evaluation of my time spent working on ‘Opening Doors’ a production by Keith Badham, who is along with being a writer, a director and performer. Badham’s work is rather relatable and connects to an audience, as he portrays realistic occurrences in life, and sometimes tabooer and niche subjects. This show follows many different stories of individual characters; wavering from birth to death, and everything in between. Scripts for this performance were given out on the 17 th of September and it really pushed our class to work as an ensemble. As a whole, this piece lasted approximately 20 minutes- though we did spend over a month devising and perfecting it. Rehearsals during college would run all week, from Monday through Thursday and often we would stay back after college hours and rehearse. TASK ONE- WARM UPS As an actor, you need to ensure you are fully prepared for your performances. To do so, warmups help put you in the right headspace- along with physically warmi...

PRODUCTION DIARY - THE WITCHES

  WEEK ONE MONDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER Today I started off the day by waking up bright and early and making my way to college...finally, after some long, long months of summer we are back at Stockton Riverside and I have never been more excited to leave the flipping house! I walked into our usual home, Dance Studio 2 and I was met by the faces of the new first years. It was really overwhelming in a sense as I just got so used to the old second years, but its time for a fresh start. I went over to my fellow second years and we started to mingle with the first years, they all seem really lovely and they're rather brave, I definitely didn't have the courage to speak to the second years when I was in their shoes. We kicked off the day by Kelly telling us to walk around and talk to each other and mingle. We spoke to the first years and asking each other questions, just a general introduction. I have to say, they are really lovely and seem like a good group of kids so far. We then started t...

LIKE THERES NO TOMORROW - NATIONAL THEATRE CONNECTIONS

DOCUMENTING THE JOURNEY (PRODUCTION DIARY) 8TH MARCH 2021 Today was our first official day back into college after the 3 month Covid Lockdown period. This was very exciting as it has been difficult working from home and online. Upon arrival, we had to be taken into the second building as college to have our Covid tests completed. It was a bit chaotic as we had to register and fill in forms but the process was done carefully and professionally. This was actually my first covid test and it was nowhere near as bad as I imagined. Thankfully, our whole class received negative results and we could go on with our first day! Since today the Year 2's weren't in (as their tests have been scheduled for Tuesday) Kane had us play an array of games and do some fun practical tasks, as Year 2 are needed for the performance. The games we played were:  splat, wink murder, three truths and a lie and change the action.  SPLAT is a fun warm up activity which gets everyone involved. There is a '...