By Willy Russell

 

 

NODA Review by Allan Mears

 

‘Blood Brothers’ is the play which spawned the much loved, award winning musical ‘Blood Brothers’ both by the well known author Willy Russell. It tells of the Johnston twin brothers born into a large impoverished family who for economic reasons are separated at birth, one reared in poverty and the other brought up as an only child in a wealthy household.

Helen Mussel – Mrs Johnson. Helen portrayed the character well of the downtrodden single mother of many unruly children. Good Solid performance with some nice moments of acting.

Cat Rose – Mrs Lyons. This is a complex character to play, and Cat did well to portray the wide range of emotions of Mrs Lyons. Another good solid performance with some nice moments of acting.

Ben Smith – Mickey. Rhydian Edbow – Eddie. Adult actors playing children can very easily cross-the-line and present a slightly over the top performance looking quite excessive and farfetched. Both Ben (Micky) and Rhydian (Eddie) delivered performances which demonstrated the capability of their acting skills. Their timing and diction was strong, and I really enjoyed their characterisation.

Kate Chadwick – Linda. Kate was completely likeable bringing a light touch and little quirks to the role. I loved her facial expressions when firing the air pistol and her not so coy flirtation.

Paula Fancini-Hooper – Narrator. Paula set the tone with an engaging delivery of the poetry sections this character communicates in and adding the right touch of blackness to the proceedings, leading us along the path of destruction.

The set was plain and simple and really fitted in well with this production. One criticism is that at times the sound level of the videos drowned out the actors and the audience missed some integral dialogue.  

Overall, this was a strong production. Some excellent performances, great direction. Congratulations Concept Players.