About the work
Blood Brothers is a musical by Willy Russell, who wrote the book, music and lyrics himself. It grew out of a piece of youth theatre first performed at a Liverpool school in 1981 and premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse on 8 January 1983, before transferring to London's Lyric Theatre that April.
Plot
Twins Mickey and Eddie are separated at birth: Eddie grows up in a wealthy family, while Mickey stays with their birth mother in poverty. As adults, both fall in love with the same woman; their friendship, shaped by the class divide between them, breaks down and ends fatally for both brothers.
Cultural significance
On its return to the West End in 1988, Blood Brothers won several Laurence Olivier Awards, including Musical of the Year, and with a London run lasting from 1988 to 2012 ranks among the longest-running musicals in West End history, surpassed only by Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera.