Blood Brothers The Musical Bord Gais Energy Theatre Dublin 2023 Review
Blood Brothers The Musical, is
showing at Bord Gais Energy Theatre in February, 2023, final shows 18 February,
2023. If you have not seen Blood Brothers, then now is your chance.
The story of twins, separated at
birth, due to the poor economic circumstances of their mother, has been well
set-out over the years by critiques and promoters alike, so this review will
not Google and copy and paste that story line.
The only way to truly
understand the roller-coaster of emotions that is Blood Brothers is to buy a
ticket and take your seat.
From the rise of curtain, the
narration draws in the audience, this narration delivered with ease and menace
in equal proportions, a chill tickles the audience, as they scroll through
their history, to find any wrong doing and the possible consequences as being
promised from that Phantom of the Opera.
The cast, from the headline
characters to the new years eve revelers deliver Blood Brothers in a seamless,
entertainment rarely enjoyed on any stage. Rebecca Storm who portrays the downtrodden
but non-defeated, Mrs Johnstone, epitomizes the professionalism among the cast.
Many in the audience fully
aware that Ireland has its own dark history of broken families, Mother and Baby
Homes and the much-hated Magdalene Laundries, into which Mrs Johnstone and her
children would have been easily cast, by those suited and booted and hanging of
the altar rails.
Willy Russel who wrote Blood Brothers, clearly understood how society worked, how class determined life chances and how much of society cared less about Mickey and the thousands like him, who fill our prisons and grave-yards each year.
How the pen-pusher issuing
redundancy notices at the dictate of the capitalist, soon joins the Dole queue
when the bottom line is threatened.
Blood Brothers, which has
enjoyed over ten-thousand performances in London’s West End when produced by Bill
Kenwright, has been well rehearsed, although casts have been fluid as careers
transition over the years.
The cast of Blood
Brothers The Musical performing at Bord Gais Energy Theatre is not alone, a
beautifully sequenced and conducted score, draws the attentive audience into
the ever deepening and inevitable tragedy being laid before it.
Tell Me It’s Not True, Marilyn
Monroe and Bright New Day, touch deep within an audience already on the edge of
their seat, with laughter, sorrow and a watchful eye on the Man in Black.
It was no surprise that the
cast received no less than four standing ovations on Valentine’s night 2023, at
Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin.
I have never seen so many
grown men cry, and perhaps, many of them, knowing only too well about the
reality of the tragedy just played out before them.
