Blood Brothers Assessment
“Blood Brothers” is a play about two twins who are separated at birth, they do not only have different parents but have a whole different lifestyle. Eddie lives in a world of luxury and has opportunities to go to university and eventually owning his own business which is more than Mickey could have ever dreamed of. On the other hand Mickey is brought up in a working class family with no qualifications whatsoever, as soon as Mickey thinks he has finally settled down with a job he then finds himself fired and starts turning to crime.
Towards the end of the play the differences between Eddie and Mickey begin to show as friction is caused between them. They begin to turn against each other and Linda is stuck in the middle as she has feelings for both Eddie and Mickey, this is when the question is raised asking whether Linda and Eddie have been having an affair. This is then what sends Mickey off the rails and ends up being the cause of the Johnstone twin’s death as Mickey shot Eddie in a rage of anger over Linda. Tension is caused at the end of the play when Mrs Johnstone tells Mickey and Eddie that they are brothers as the audience already knew this they just wanted to know when and how this would be revealed to the twins.
Willy Russell wrote Blood Brothers to show how life was in Liverpool in 1980s and how being in a different class separated people. He also refers to the recession and how so many people lost their jobs and the only way for them to earn a living was to turn to crime like Mickey did as he needed money to support Linda and his child, Sammy did not help the situation as he was the one who had persuaded Mickey to earn money in that way.
The end of the story is revealed to the audience by the narrator at the very beginning of the play. This builds up tension because people know what is going to happen so they are waiting to find out how it happened and what led up to that scene. Another thing that