Blood Brothers

• 'Judge for yourselves how she came to play this part' 


  • Narrator gives us an open invitation to critique
  • Play is aware it's a play and breaks the 4th wall
• 'By the time I was 25, I looked like 42'


  • Mrs Johnstone admits the toll being a mother has taken on her
  • Foreshadows what will happen to Linda
• 'I believe a child can become ones own' 


  • At the start of the play, Mrs Lyons is a sympathetic figure - she is alone in a big house with her husband out working
  • She starts as a hopeful and optimistic woman
• '(producing a pen knife)'


  • stage direction for Mickey
  • Mickey is exposed to violence at a young age - he owns at pen knife at 7 years old
  • Reflective of his turbulent upbringing
• 'Jennifer! Jennifer, how many times... my work is here'


  • Mr Lyons is blunt and rude - he uses her first name and shouts
  • He has little sympathy for her
  • Links to the theme of absent father's
  • 'my' pronoun to show Mr Lyons selfish nature and how his work is more important to family for him
• 'Yes, we're safe here... aren't we?'

  • Mrs Lyons paranoia begins to show
  • She says 'we' which isn't just her trying to reassure Edward but also herself, almost questioning her security
• 'Talk of Oxbridge'

  'How the hell do you expect to get a job when you never listen?' 


  - Expectations of education for the two boys are completely different/ Mickeys whole purpose is to go out and get a job where as Edward is expected to go on to higher education and get a degree

  • directly linked to class
• 'It sounds funny swearing in that dead posh voice' 


  • Mickey has grown up and now starts to see the differences between him and Edward. These differences are ultimately what leads to the divide between them as they age and eventually heir downfall
• 'She's washed a million dishes, she's always making tea' 


  • Linda who begins as a 'tomboy' has now emerged as a maternal figure
  • We see the expectations placed on her as a woman have downtrodden her
  • Not only does she have to mother their child, she also has to 'mother' mickey when he returns o prison
  • She has become the next Mrs Johnstone - cyclical structure
• 'as like each other as two new pins'

  ' one was kept and one given away 


  • Simile - Mickey and Edward are at first identical
  • We are then asked to think about how this difference in upbringing would effect the twins - Nature Vs nurture
• 'He's gone. He's gone up to heaven, love' 


  • Mrs Johnstone pretends Edward is dead
  • In reality he is alive and this 'heaven' is Mrs Lyons. She is a heaven because a middle class upbringing gives Edward a blessing in this society
• 'Babies catch things very easily'

  • Mrs Lyons says this to her husband about Mrs Johnstone holding Edward
  • She fears he may catch a disease
  • This suggests that she may think due to Mrs Johnstone's class, she is unclean or sick - Showing how the upper classes view the lower classes
  • Alternatively this 'disease' is Mrs Johnstone's chaotic way of living. Or even her poverty
• 'If either twin learns that he was once a pair, they shall both immediately die' 


  • Mrs Lyons is preying on Mrs Johnstone's fear of the supernatural.
  • The lower classes who were more likely to be uneducated had a keener belief in the supernatural.
  • This happens throughout the text. For example the 'boogeyman' and 'new shoes on the table'
  • Foreshadows the death of Mickey and Edward
• Edward is called by his name where as mickey has a nickname


  • The differences in registers used shows their class divide
  • In Mickey's world, names are shorted and informal . In Edward's, they are formal and professional
• 'Make sure he keeps with his own kind'

  'It was more of a harmless prank'

  'I'd dock his pocket money'

  'It'll be the courts for you'


  • The treatment of the boys by the police is completely different due to their class
  • Mickey is threatened with a criminal record whereas Edward has his pocket money docked
  • Irony that Edward is told to stay with his own kind. There is the question, who is is own kind? Culturally it is the Lyons, biologically is is the Johnstones
• 'And only if we could stop and be for ever, just eighteen' 


  • Repetition of 'and only if' prior to this reinforces the idea of the conditional. They cannot remain 18
  • 18 years old and adulthood are the point at which their difference have become magnified, separating them even further
• 'I grew up. An' you didn't, because you didn't need to'


  • It has been just 3 months since tuning 18 and their differences have already had and impact
  • Mickey has lost his job and has had to grow up to provide or his family. Edward, Due to his class and privilege, has been able to be free from such responsibility and remain at school
• 'Do we blame superstition for what has come to pass, or could it be what we, the English, have come to know as class?'


  • Narrator questions the audience for the events of the play
  • Was it superstition that killed them or was it the effects of class?
  • the two boys were identical biologically but culturally completely different
  • Mickey had many set backs due to the system working against him and prejudice. Edward had an advantage from the start due to the system favouring him
  • Nature Vs nurture
  • Both boys die to show inequality will negatively effect society as a whole