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A new Student Edition of Willy Russell''s enduring 1983 play, Blood Brothers, offering accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a C21st lens. As well as exploring the key themes, characters and dramatic devices of the play, and how they map onto our experience today, it conveys how groundbreaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.The commentary by Rebecca Hillman encourages students to:* consider what it must have been like to be at the very first performance of the play in a school classroom in Liverpool; * consider the significance of key phrases in the text, such as "living on the never never" and "the debt must be paid"* make comparisons between life in 1980s Britain and today - "the shrinking pound, the global slump and the price of oil";* think about what the play celebrates - friendship, family, community, neighbourhood* create their own show based on the story of Blood Brothers to engage their own communityThis edition offers a much-needed analysis of the play with a lens that today''s students will appreciate and be inspired by.>
List of contents
Chronology
Introduction
Historical Context
Genre and Form
Social Realism
A Folk Ballad?
Themes
Superstition and Fate
Class
Debt
BLOOD BROTHERS
Notes
About the author
One of the most-produced writers of his time, Willy Russell (b. Whiston, Liverpool, 23 Aug. 1947) is a playwright and songwriter. He has written a large number of highly successful plays and musicals for stage and TV including John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert (1974), Breezeblock Park (1975), One for the Road (1976),Our Day Out (television 1977; stage musical version 1983), Stags and Hens (1978; filmed as Dancin' thru the Dark, 1990), Educating Rita (1979), Blood Brothers(1981; musical version 1983), and Shirley Valentine (1986). His novel, The Wrong Boy, was published to great acclaim in 2000.Rebecca Hillman is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communications, Drama and Film, at the University of Exeter, UK. Her teaching and research explore how activists harness performance as part of campaigns, protests, and direct-action initiatives, and is informed by her work as a trade unionist and theatre-maker.
Report
This Student Edition is a class act - packed with lucid, easily digestible, yet valuable insights that will help students think about and analyse the meanings and intentions of the play with greater care. It's also a welcome reminder of why Blood Brothers deserves to be part of our cultural DNA. Teach Secondary
