Writer’s Toolkit

Blood Brothers — 6 sections · A4 printable

“Tell me it's not true. Say it's just a story.”

Language

Technique

Example

What It Reveals

Dialect / colloquial speech

"Gis a sweet" / "Youse wanna come an' look in the catalogue"

Establishes Mrs Johnstone and Mickey as rooted in working-class Liverpool — the phonetic spelling and contracted forms immerse the audience in a specific social milieu and signal limited educational opportunity.

"He's mine. He's my son" (Mrs J) vs "You'll be OFF if you don't give him to me" (Mrs L)

Highlights the class divide through speech — Mrs Johnstone's language is emotionally direct and visceral, while Mrs Lyons uses imperative authority underscored by economic power, revealing how class shapes even the expression of motherhood.

Superstitious language

"New shoes on the table… take them off" / "Shoes upon the table / An' a spider's been killed"

Creates an atmosphere of looming fate — the incantatory, list-like delivery of superstitions gives them quasi-religious weight, blurring the line between folk belief and genuine prophecy within the play's world.

Song lyrics

"Marilyn Monroe / Knew about Monroe / And they didn't have a clue"

Russell uses song to compress time, convey inner emotion, and comment on the action — the lyrics operate outside naturalism, allowing characters to express feelings they cannot articulate in spoken dialogue.

Repetition

"The devil's got your number… he's gonna find y'" / "Tell me it's not true"

Drives home inevitability and emotional intensity — the Narrator's repeated warnings accumulate dread, while Mickey's final repeated plea becomes a desperate, futile incantation against fate.

Rhyme

"High upon the hill the mad man stands / With blood upon his hands"

Gives the play a folk-ballad quality — end rhymes and internal rhymes create a song-like momentum that propels the narrative toward its tragic conclusion, echoing nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

Imperative verbs

"Give him to me" / "Don't you ever come round here again"

Expose power dynamics — Mrs Lyons commands Mrs Johnstone with imperatives rooted in economic leverage, while Mrs Johnstone's later imperatives are desperate rather than authoritative, showing that language alone cannot overcome class.

Emotive language

"Already gone" / "I could have been him"

Elicits pathos and audience sympathy — Mickey's sparse, devastated language in adulthood contrasts with his childhood exuberance, making the emotional decline tangible and deeply affecting.

Metaphor

"Living on the never never" / "The whole estate's on the dole"

Captures systemic poverty through figurative language — 'the never never' implies a debt trap from which escape is permanently deferred, reflecting Thatcherite economics as an inescapable cycle.

Simile

"Like Marilyn Monroe" / "Like looking in a mirror"

Creates vivid parallels — Mrs Johnstone's comparison to Monroe hints at glamour undermined by tragedy, while the mirror simile for the twins foregrounds their identical natures split by class.

Irony (dramatic and verbal)

"I'm not saying a word" (Mrs Johnstone, having already given Eddie away)

Generates tension between surface meaning and hidden truth — the audience, knowing about the pact, hears double meanings in every casual reference to brotherhood, amplifying the sense of impending catastrophe.

Childish language

"I'm not playin' with you" / "Gis a go of your gun" / "Cross your heart and hope to die"

Conveys innocence and foreshadows its loss — phrases like 'hope to die' are harmless in childhood but gain lethal irony when the boys grow up and a real gun replaces the toy one.

Legal / formal register

"An agreement, a binding agreement" / "You signed it"

Mrs Lyons weaponises formal language to trap Mrs Johnstone — the legalistic register intimidates a woman who lacks institutional power, demonstrating how the language of law serves the privileged.

Rhetorical questions

"How quickly an old familiar face can become a stranger's?"

Forces the audience to reflect on the speed with which class and circumstance divide people — the Narrator's questions puncture complacency and draw attention to social injustice.

Structural Techniques

Technique

Example / Description

What It Does

Prologue (reveals ending)

"So did y' hear the story of the Johnstone twins? … how one was kept and one given away?"

Opens with the tragic conclusion — by revealing the deaths before Act 1 begins, Russell shifts the audience's focus from what happens to why it happens, foregrounding the social forces that destroy the twins.

Cyclical structure

Play opens and closes with the twins' dead bodies on stage and the Narrator's question

Creates a sense of inescapable fate — the return to the opening image suggests the tragedy was always inevitable, prompting the audience to ask whether superstition or society is to blame.

Parallel lives structure

Mickey and Edward grow up simultaneously — one in poverty, one in privilege

Provides a controlled experiment in nature versus nurture — by tracking two genetically identical boys through divergent environments, the structure itself becomes Russell's argument about class determinism.

Time jumps (childhood to adulthood)

The boys leap from age seven to fourteen to adult life within songs and montage sequences

Compresses decades to show how quickly innocence is eroded — the jumps expose the widening gap between the twins' trajectories, making the structural acceleration mirror society's failure to intervene.

The Narrator as structural device

The Narrator appears between scenes to comment, warn, and bridge time periods

Functions as a structural spine — he stitches scenes together, controls pace, and ensures the audience never forgets the predetermined ending, maintaining dramatic tension throughout.

Musical numbers advancing plot

"Bright New Day" moves the Johnstones from the inner city to Skelmersdale new town

Songs do not merely illustrate mood but drive the narrative forward — key transitions (moving house, growing up, falling in love) are achieved through music, compressing time and heightening emotion simultaneously.

Dramatic irony (audience knows from start)

Mickey and Edward swear to be "blood brothers" without knowing they already are

Pervades the entire structure — every moment of friendship, rivalry, and separation is charged with the audience's foreknowledge of the ending, transforming innocuous scenes into unbearable foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing

"The gun… a+n air pistol" in childhood becomes a real gun in the final scene

Seeds of the climax are planted early — childhood games with toy guns, policemen's warnings, and the Narrator's prophecies accumulate so that the fatal shooting feels both shocking and structurally inevitable.

Accelerating pace

Act 2 moves increasingly rapidly through unemployment, depression, crime, and confrontation

Mirrors the social descent — as Mickey's life spirals, the structure compresses, denying the audience (and Mickey) breathing room, replicating the relentless pressure of poverty.

Juxtaposition of twin lives

Edward goes to university while Mickey works in a factory; Edward thrives while Mickey is made redundant

Structural parallel underlines inequality — placing the scenes side by side forces direct comparison, making the argument about class impossible to ignore or dismiss.

Montage sequences

The childhood montage shows Mickey, Edward, and Linda playing together across seasons

Condenses long periods into brief, emotionally resonant sequences — the montage format lets Russell show the passage of happiness quickly, making its loss more poignant when adulthood arrives.

Climactic convergence

All characters and plotlines converge in the council chamber for the final confrontation

Brings every thread together in a single explosive moment — the structural convergence mirrors the collision of class, identity, and fate that the play has been building toward since the prologue.

Dramatic Techniques

Technique

Example / Description

What It Does

Dramatic irony (prologue reveals death)

The audience watches Mickey and Edward become friends already knowing they will die

Transforms every joyful scene into a source of tension — the audience's superior knowledge creates a persistent emotional undertow, making even comedy feel precarious and doomed.

The Narrator (chorus / commentator)

"There's a man gone mad in the town tonight… he's gonna find y'"

Acts as a Greek chorus, moral conscience, and embodiment of fate — his intrusions break naturalism, remind the audience of the predetermined outcome, and invite them to judge the society on stage.

Songs as emotional commentary

"Tell Me It's Not True" — Mrs Johnstone's final lament over the dead twins

Music externalises grief that prose dialogue cannot contain — the song transcends the specific narrative and becomes a universal plea against injustice, intensifying the emotional impact of the climax.

Direct address to audience

The Narrator speaks and sings directly to the audience throughout the play

Breaks the fourth wall and implicates the audience — by addressing them directly, Russell prevents passive consumption and demands active moral engagement with the story's social questions.

Staging contrasts (Johnstone vs Lyons homes)

The cramped, chaotic Johnstone house versus the pristine, spacious Lyons residence

Makes class inequality visually concrete — the audience literally sees the material difference that determines the twins' fates, reinforcing the play's argument through design rather than dialogue alone.

Physical comedy (childhood)

Mickey, Edward, and Linda play cowboys and Indians, throw sweets, and wrestle

Establishes warmth and innocence — the slapstick energy of childhood scenes wins audience affection for the characters, making their adult suffering more devastating by contrast.

Freeze frames

Characters freeze while the Narrator delivers commentary or a song bridges time

Suspends time and foregrounds the Narrator's moral authority — freeze frames create a Brechtian distancing effect, pulling the audience out of the story to reflect on its meaning.

Split staging

The stage is divided to show the Johnstone and Lyons households simultaneously

Allows direct visual comparison of the twins' worlds — the audience sees both lives unfolding in parallel, making the structural argument about inequality immediate and inescapable.

Superstition motif

"Shoes upon the table" recurs throughout as a dramatic refrain

Functions as a recurring theatrical punctuation — each repetition ratchets tension and reminds the audience that the characters are moving toward a fate they may or may not be able to control.

Monologue

Mrs Johnstone's opening monologue establishes her backstory through song

Grants the audience intimate access to her perspective — by beginning with Mrs Johnstone's voice, Russell centres the working-class experience and ensures audience sympathy is established before the moral dilemma begins.

Ensemble scenes

The children's street games and the factory chorus scenes

Create a sense of community and shared experience — ensemble numbers place individual tragedy within a wider social context, showing that the Johnstones' fate is not unique but systemic.

The gun as prop

A toy gun in Act 1 becomes a real revolver in the final scene

Provides a visual through-line from innocence to destruction — the prop's transformation from plaything to weapon is a physical metaphor for the way poverty and despair corrupt potential.

Dramatic tension through secrets

Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyons share a secret the audience knows but the twins do not

Sustains suspense across the entire play — every near-revelation (the locket, the resemblance, the Narrator's hints) creates agonising tension as the audience waits for the truth to emerge.

Form and Genre

Genre / Form

How It Appears

Why It Matters

Musical theatre

Characters express emotions through songs such as 'Marilyn Monroe', 'Easy Terms', and 'Tell Me It's Not True'

Music allows emotional intensity beyond the reach of spoken dialogue — songs compress time, externalise inner feeling, and create communal theatrical experiences that heighten the play's impact.

Social realism

Depicts unemployment, council housing, the dole, and factory closures in 1960s–80s Liverpool

Grounds the tragedy in recognisable economic reality — Russell draws on his own working-class Liverpool background to ensure the social critique is authentic rather than abstract.

Tragedy

Both twins die at the climax, fulfilling the prophecy established in the prologue

The play follows a tragic arc from happiness through reversal to catastrophe — but Russell shifts blame from individual flaws to social structures, making this a modern political tragedy.

Greek tragedy elements (chorus / fate)

The Narrator functions as a chorus; the prologue establishes an inescapable fate

Echoes classical tragedy to lend weight and universality — the sense that the outcome is predetermined invites the audience to consider whether society, like the gods, imposes destinies on individuals.

Morality play

The Narrator can be read as a devil figure tempting and warning characters about sin and consequence

Gives the play a moral-allegorical dimension — like medieval morality plays, it presents a journey from innocence to knowledge, asking the audience to draw ethical conclusions.

Political theatre

The play directly addresses Thatcherism, unemployment, and the destruction of working-class communities

Russell uses theatre as a vehicle for social argument — the play is designed not merely to entertain but to provoke audiences into questioning the political structures that produce inequality.

Epic theatre (Brechtian)

The Narrator breaks the fourth wall, songs interrupt action, and the ending is revealed at the start

Brechtian techniques prevent emotional passivity — by constantly reminding the audience they are watching a constructed story, Russell encourages critical thought about the social conditions depicted.

Folk tale / fairy tale elements

Twins separated at birth; a pact sealed in secret; a prophecy of doom; a 'wicked' mother figure

Taps into archetypal storytelling patterns — the fairy-tale framework makes the political content accessible and emotionally resonant, while also highlighting how 'once upon a time' simplicity masks systemic injustice.

Symbolism and Motifs

Symbol / Motif

Where It Appears

What It Represents

Blood

"We're blood brothers" — the boys cut their hands and swear an oath

Represents both biological kinship and violent fate — the blood bond is simultaneously a celebration of friendship and an unconscious acknowledgment of the biological truth, making the innocent ritual darkly prophetic.

Shoes

"New shoes on the table" — the superstition recurs as a motif throughout

Symbolise death and bad luck — shoes on the table traditionally predict a death in the family; their repeated appearance marks moments when fate tightens its grip on the characters.

The locket

Mrs Johnstone gives Eddie a locket with a photo; Mrs Lyons later discovers it

Represents the hidden maternal bond — the locket is a physical remnant of Eddie's true identity that threatens to expose the secret, functioning as a ticking dramatic time bomb throughout the play.

Guns (toy to real)

Mickey and Eddie play with toy guns as children; Mickey wields a real gun in the final scene

Symbolise the corruption of innocence — the transition from toy to weapon charts the boys' journey from play to desperation, showing how poverty transforms potential into destruction.

Superstition

"A broken mirror… a single magpie… spilt salt" — listed by the Narrator as omens

Functions as a motif of predestination — Russell uses superstition ambiguously, allowing the audience to debate whether fate or social inequality is the true cause of the tragedy.

The Narrator (fate / devil)

"Y' know the devil's got your number" — the Narrator sings menacingly

Symbolises inescapable fate or the devil himself — his omnipresence suggests a malevolent force controlling events, but Russell leaves open whether that force is supernatural or simply the class system.

Twins / doubling

Mickey and Edward are genetically identical but socially opposite in every way

The central symbol of the play — doubling exposes how environment, not inherent ability, determines life outcomes, making the twins a living argument against meritocratic myths.

Money / class markers

"Thousands of sweets" that Edward can afford vs Mickey's empty pockets

Material objects consistently mark the class divide — sweets, clothes, houses, and education all function as visible symbols of the economic inequality that drives the tragedy.

Marilyn Monroe

"He told me I was sexier than Marilyn Monroe" — Mrs Johnstone's song

Symbolises glamour, broken promises, and tragic femininity — Monroe's own story of poverty, fame, and early death mirrors Mrs Johnstone's trajectory and foreshadows the play's tragic ending.

The council house vs the suburban home

The Johnstones live in a cramped terraced house; the Lyons occupy a large suburban property

Physical settings symbolise the class barrier — the geography of the play maps social inequality onto space, showing how postcode determines destiny in post-war Britain.

Christmas

The Lyons family Christmas with gifts contrasts with the Johnstones' sparse celebration

Symbolises both generosity and inequality — the festival associated with giving and family togetherness instead highlights how economic disparity penetrates even the most personal moments of life.

Names (Edward / Mickey)

"Edward" suggests formality and tradition; "Mickey" suggests informality and working-class identity

Names encode class expectations from birth — 'Edward' carries royal, establishment connotations while 'Mickey' is colloquial and diminutive, prefiguring each boy's social trajectory before they speak a word.

The dole / the factory

Mickey's progression from factory work to redundancy to the dole queue

Symbolises the systemic failure of Thatcher-era economics — the factory represents exploitative but available labour, and the dole represents its withdrawal, both trapping the working class.

Higher Concepts

Concept

Where It Appears

What Russell Is Saying

Nature vs nurture

Mickey and Edward share identical DNA but lead utterly different lives based on their upbringing

Russell's central thesis — the twins are a dramatic experiment proving that environment, not genetics, determines life outcomes. The play asks the audience to see poverty as a constructed condition, not a natural one.

Class inequality

Edward receives a private education and university place; Mickey gets a factory job and unemployment

The play systematically exposes how the British class system allocates opportunity at birth — Russell argues that talent and character are irrelevant when economic structures predetermine success and failure.

Thatcherism

The play's second half depicts factory closures, mass unemployment, and the erosion of community in 1980s Liverpool

Russell directly critiques Thatcher-era policies — the destruction of working-class industry and community is presented not as economic necessity but as political choice, with devastating human consequences.

Superstition vs social determinism

The Narrator asks: "Do we blame superstition for what came to pass? Or could it be what we, the English, have come to know as class?"

Russell's most explicit thematic statement — the rhetorical question invites the audience to reject the comforting mysticism of fate and recognise that class is the true determinant of the twins' destruction.

Fate vs free will

The prologue predestines the ending, yet characters make choices throughout that seem to lead there naturally

Russell creates deliberate ambiguity — the structure implies fate, but the content shows social causation, challenging the audience to decide whether tragedy is inevitable or preventable through political change.

The welfare state

Mrs Johnstone relies on council housing and social support; the move to Skelmersdale represents post-war welfare provision

Russell shows the welfare state as both a lifeline and a mechanism of control — relocation offers hope but also uproots community, and the eventual withdrawal of support leaves families like the Johnstones destitute.

Unemployment and poverty

"I'm not saying a word… I don't want to be on me own" — Mickey's despair after losing his job

Russell shows unemployment not merely as economic hardship but as a destruction of identity and dignity — Mickey's decline from energetic child to depressed adult charts the psychological toll of systemic poverty.

Education and opportunity

Edward attends a private school and goes to university; Mickey attends a state school and enters manual labour

The play exposes education as a mechanism of class reproduction — identical potential produces vastly different outcomes when filtered through an unequal education system, undermining any pretence of meritocracy.

Mental health

Mickey is prescribed antidepressants and becomes dependent on them after losing his job and going to prison

Russell links mental illness to social conditions — Mickey's depression is not a personal failing but a predictable consequence of unemployment, poverty, and incarceration, critiquing a society that medicates rather than addresses root causes.

Maternal love

"I love the bones of every one of them" — Mrs Johnstone on her many children

Russell presents Mrs Johnstone's love as fierce, instinctive, and constant despite her poverty — her maternal devotion is contrasted with Mrs Lyons' possessive, anxious love, suggesting that wealth does not guarantee emotional security.

The "Bogey Man"

"The bogey man, he's coming to get y'" — the Narrator warns repeatedly

Represents the inescapable threat hanging over the characters — the childish term for a monster is recontextualised as a symbol of class destiny, superstition, or social judgment, depending on interpretation.

Social mobility

The Johnstones' move to Skelmersdale initially appears to offer a fresh start, but structural inequalities follow them

Russell argues that geographical relocation without economic transformation is an illusion — true social mobility requires systemic change, not simply moving the poor to new estates.

Brotherhood and loyalty

"I will always defend my brother" — the blood-brother oath Mickey and Edward swear as children

Russell shows that genuine human connection transcends class — but also that the class system is powerful enough to destroy even the deepest bonds, turning brothers into enemies by adulthood.