How are the songs important to “Blood Brothers”? What do they add and how do they help the play?

GCSE: English Literature

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‘Blood Brothers’ was written by Willy Russell and first performed in the early 1980s in the Liverpool Playhouse. The soundtrack we have been listening to while reading the play is of the original Liverpool Playhouse cast starring Barbara Dickson as Mrs. Johnstone and Andrew Schofield as the Narrator. The CD was recorded in 1983.

All of the songs help form the structure of the play and to know what is happening and how time has passed. The songs are catchy and entertaining, belonging very firmly in the ‘pop’ genre. “Tell Me It’s Not True” was a big hit for Barbara Dickson in the early ‘80s.

Some of the songs in the play particularly help to move the storyline alone. We can see two such songs at the beginning of the acts. “Narration”, sung by the Narrator, at the beginning of Act One is important because it gives us an overview of the whole story. The Narrator here is putting the play into context, whetting our appetites for what is to come and offering us a general introduction. Firstly he tells us the facts of what will happen. He then offers an opinion of Mrs. Johnstone and her actions which he quickly changes to just an idea and asks us to make our own judgement. Straightaway we are involved in the story and we want to know more about Mrs. Johnstone and the tragedy that will befall her family.

Act Two also begins with a song which tells us about the family’s new life in their new house; this time “Marilyn Monroe 2”. Mrs. Johnstone seems happy where she is out in the country and has even started going out with the milkman. This song also serves the purpose of telling us what everybody else is up to and helps us to believe in the passing of time. This is important because seven years have passed, people have grown up and changed and without the song we would not know this.

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