Ros Merkin - Blood Brothers GCSE Student Guide

Think about the title of the play and make a list of all the expectations you have about the play from the title.

Russell presents us with two problems that can make reading the play difficult. Firstly, the play is divided into two acts but whilst there are clearly different scenes, these are not marked in the script as they are in many plays. He has obviously written like this for a reason; it makes the narrative a seamless, inevitable whole that moves relentlessly to the conclusion, but it can make it hard to follow. When she is directing, Glen Walford breaks the play into eighty-two units (or sections). Whilst that number of sections might make things just as confusing, it is useful to think about how you might break the play down into parts to help you study the text. What follows uses the ages of the twins as an organizing device. Secondly, he provides no specific dates. There are some clues in the text, for example, the mention of pounds, shillings and pence (decimalization happened in 1971) and he has said that when the narrator talks about today near the end of the play, that relates to the time of the plays first production. Whilst it is hard to be very specific about dates, it is possible to identify which decade each section takes place in.

Time: 1950s (including a moment in the 1980s)

The play starts at the end, the outline of two bodies marked out on the stage. This means the audience know how it all ends before it has even started, suggesting a fatalism (it will be like this and nothing can change it) and allowing them to concentrate on HOW and WHY it happens rather than WHAT happens. Mrs Johnstone is introduced. She looks old but in the past she danced and was lovelier (and sexier) than Marilyn Monroe. Then her husband walked out on her to dance with someone else, leaving seven children and one more on the way. A sympathy is set up with her plight and two key motifs (dancing and Marilyn Monroe) are introduced.

Time: Late 1950s/early 1960s

Mrs Johnstone cannot even dream of happiness without real life getting in the way and the milkman demanding payment interrupts her reminiscences. She has not got enough money to pay him. From offstage, the children complain and alone onstage Mrs Johnstone tries to appease them. However, there is a promise that things will get better. She has a new job and will be able to feed them. Arriving for her first day at work, the play juxtaposes Mrs Lyons and Mrs Johnstone putting the two characters next to each other to emphasize the differences between them; Mrs Lyons has new shoes but cannot have children and Mrs Johnstone has a duster and a brush and cannot stop having children. It also introduces the theme of superstition as Mrs Lyons puts her new shoes on the table, the moment underlined by the narrator.

Shocked to find out she is having twins, Mrs Johnstones hopes that she was getting straight are dashed but Mrs Lyons forms a plan to help them both. She offers to take one of the babies, and, before Mrs Johnstone has even agreed, is stuffing a cushion under her dress to simulate a pregnancy and planning what to tell her husband. Mrs Johnstone nods her agreement as she realizes that the child will have everything. She can see Mrs Lyons is desperate and is promised she will be able to see the child every day when she comes to work. Mrs Lyons insists that it must be a binding agreement and makes Mrs Johnstone swear on the Bible. Once again, the narrator adds to the tension and for the first time we hear a phrase that will recur: a debt is a debt and must be paid (40). The optimism at the start has evaporated and with the birth of the babies there is little to celebrate.