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->Tell me it's not true\\
Say it's just a story...

''Blood Brothers'' is a musical written by playwright Willy Russell, about twin brothers--Mickey and Eddie--who are [[SeparatedAtBirth separated at birth]] by their mother, Mrs. Johnstone, who can't afford to raise them both, and her barren employer Mrs. Lyons. They are brought up in two vastly different environments, on opposite ends of the social spectrum. As children, they meet and become best friends, never finding out they are brothers until the day they die.

Russell is not a trained musician at all, but wanted to write a musical to call his own, and wanted it to be purely his, not a collaboration. It has become one of the most popular and long-running shows in West End history.

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!! This musical contains examples of:
* AdolfHitlarious: When Edward meets Mickey and Linda, they tell him that whenever they're caught by the cops, they tell them that their name is Adolf Hitler. Edward [[MilesGloriosus pulls this on a real policeman (twice), only for it to backfire.]]
* AlphaBitch: Mrs Lyons when she emotionally blackmails Mrs Johnstone into letting her keep Edward.
* AntiLoveSong: "I'm Not Saying A Word", Eddie's song to Linda about how he's ''not'' going to tell her how he feels about her. It takes a seriously skilled actor to make this song work.
* ArcNumber: The number seven appears several times throughout the play. For example, Mrs. Johnstone already has seven children before having Mickey and Edward, the play moves in seven-year gaps, and [[spoiler:Mickey is sentenced to seven years in prison after acting as lookout for a robbery Sammy gets involved in]]. This could be because of a superstition involving magpies: seeing seven stands for a secret.
%% * ArcWords: "Shoes Upon the Table".
* BabyAsPayment: Mrs. Johnstone, desperate for money after discovering that she's got twins coming, agrees to sell one of the unborn twins to her employer, Mrs. Lyons, who desperately wants a child. When the twins are born, Mrs. Johnstone has a change of heart, but Mrs. Lyons comes to collect the baby anyway.
* CannotSpitItOut: Mickey, in the first part of Act 2, struggles to express his feelings for Linda.
%% ** "I'm Not Saying A Word" combines this with CouldSayItBut, as Eddie waxes on about the feelings he wishes he could share with Linda.
* CharacterCatchphrase: The narrator often says or sings "Now you know the Devil's got your number" whenever one of the mothers is feeling guilty.
* DarkReprise: While "Shoes Upon the Table" is already a very dark song to begin with, the Narrator returns every now and then to reprise it, with somewhat different lyrics, as the brothers' lives comes closer and closer to ending, until he reaches [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic the final reprise, "Madman"]], when, as he says, "[The Devil]'s calling your number up TODAY".
** Another example is the song "Marilyn Monroe". The first time it's sung, it's Mrs Johnson who's described as being "sexier than Marilyn Monroe". That continues in the second reprise. However, the final reprise is sung more slowly and this time it's about Mickey, whose tablet taking and depression is described as being "just like Marilyn Monroe".
* DealWithTheDevil: The agreement Mrs. Johnstone makes with Ms. Lyon is explicitly compared to a deal with the devil, with "Shoes Upon the Table" emphasizing how the price will eventually come due.
* DisappearedDad: The opening number explains how Mr. Johnstone walked out on his wife.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Mickey kills Eddie and is then shot by the police, having only just found out that they're actually brothers by birth instead of just by the oath they made.]]
* DramaticIrony: The audience knows from the start that Mickey and Eddie are twins, but they don't learn this until the end.
* EpicRocking: "Tell Me It's Not True" is the longest [[LongestSongGoesLast and final]] song in the play, lasting around five and a half minutes.
* EtherealChoir: Used to hauntingly beautiful effect in the Overture.
* ForegoneConclusion: As noted elsewhere on the page, it's revealed right at the beginning of the play that Mickey and Eddie end up dead; the story's in how that happened.
%% * GirlNextDoor: Linda
* HowWeGotHere: The first scene has a re-enactment of the final scene: the two brothers lying dead.
* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: At the end ([[ForegoneConclusion and beginning]]) of the play, Mickey threatens Edward with a gun he doesn't know is loaded, and accidentally shoots him.
* InherentlyFunnyWords: "Tits". At one point, after [[spoiler:seeing a dirty picture with Mickey]], Eddie keeps giddily repeating it over and over.
* InteractiveNarrator: Depending on the direction for a given production, the Narrator of this show can be played similar to this.
* IntrafamilialClassConflict: The contrast between Mickey and Eddie's respective working-class and middle-class upbringings is the main source of conflict in the narrative.
* {{Jerkass}}: Mickey's secondary school teacher. For example:
-->'''[[TeachersPet Perkins]]''': Sir!
-->'''Teacher''': Oh, shut up, Perkins, y' borin' little turd.
** Mickey counts as well once he is [[spoiler: made redundant.]]
-->'''Mickey''': [[spoiler: Eddie, just do me a favour an' piss off, will ye?]]
* JumpScare: Depending on the production, [[spoiler: the gunfire at the end can be this]].
** The start of 'Madman' can be this as well, as it comes ''immediately'' after the reprise of 'Easy Terms'.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Mrs. Lyons wants nothing more than her own child, but they can't conceive and her husband refuses to adopt. Mrs. Johnstone, meanwhile, has "seven hungry mouths to feed and one more nearly due" which turns out to be twins.
* LoveTriangle: Type 7 between Mickey, Eddie, and Linda. She ends up [[spoiler:marrying Mickey after he knocks her up, whilst Eddie is away at university. When Mickey is arrested and becomes a pill-popping mental case, Linda turns to Eddie for help and comfort, and the two begin a chaste pseudo-affair]].
* LyricalDissonance: "Take A Letter, Miss Jones" is a bright, upbeat, happy song sung by Mr. Lyons the factory manager as he dictates letters to his secretary, each of which fires another employee. Then he fires her. Not to mention the first part of the song coincides with the wedding of Mickey and Linda.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Were [[spoiler:Eddie and Mickey's death simply a tragedy caused by societal failings, or did the superstition Mrs. Lyons invented about separated twins come true?]] Lampshaded by the narrator.
-->And do we blame superstition for what has come to pass? Or do we blame what we, the English, have come to know as class?
* MeaningfulName: Johnston is a rather common surname in England, emphasising the family's lower-class status, but the variation makes it seem down to earth (stone). Meanwhile, Lyons invokes the image of a ''pride'' of lions, and pride is definitely something Mrs. Lyons values heavily.
* MilesGloriosus: While trying to impress Eddie, Mickey and Linda claim that they always {{Troll}} the cops with obviously fake answers and rude responses (for example, they say {{Adolf Hitl|arious}}er when asked for their name). Once a copper approaches them later, Eddie acts that way while his friends freak out.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: A rare male example: [[spoiler:after Mickey's SanitySlippage, Linda has an affair with Edward; Mrs. Lyons tells Mickey, who blows Edward away]].
* MyBelovedSmother: Mrs. Lyons, as if to compensate for the fact Eddie isn't really her son. This is especially the case when it comes to Mrs. Johnstone and Mickey, who she worries are going to try to steal Eddie back.
* NoMedicationForMe: While [[spoiler:Mickey]] wants to ''stay'' on his meds, they're encouraged to quit by [[spoiler:Linda and his mother]].
* OdeToApathy: Played with in the song "I'm Not Saying a Word", where Eddie sings to Linda about how he'd win her heart if he were dating her, all while insisting that [[BlatantLies he's not trying to woo her]], because he knows that Mickey's after her, even though Mickey CannotSpitItOut.
* OopNorth: The musical is set in Liverpool and the Royal Liver Building is [[EiffelTowerEffect a key part of the musicals logo]]. The contrast between life in the slums where Mrs. Johnstone lives and the affluent part of Liverpool where Mrs. Lyons lives drives the plot of the first act. At the beginning of the second act the Johnstone family have been moved to a much nicer council house as part of the slum clearance campaign which actually happened during the post war rebuilding of Britain during the late 1960s and 1970s.
%% * OpeningChorus: "Overture".
* ParentalAbandonment: Subverted in that Mrs. Johnstone wants to continue to be part of Eddie's life at first, but Mrs. Lyons won't let her.
** Played straight with Mr. Johnstone who abandons his family while Mrs. Johnstone is pregnant with the twins.
* PlaygroundSong: This one has two! One is in the first act, so titled "Kids Game," and the other, "High Upon the Hill" is in the second act, chanted after Mrs. Lyons attempts to murder Mrs. Johnstone.
%% * ThePowerOfBlood
* PrisonChangesPeople: Mickey's stint in prison as an accessory to murder turns him into a severely-depressed EmptyShell.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "But a debt is a debt... ''AND MUST. BE. '''PAID.'''''"
* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:Mrs. Lyons]]. Crosses with a bit of LaserGuidedKarma, as [[spoiler:after mocking Mrs. Johnstone for being a bit superstitious, she ultimately becomes far more obsessive about such things]].
* SanitySlippageSong: Presented as children singing about how "High up on the hill there's a woman gone MAD!"
* SeparatedAtBirth: The twins, Mickey and Edward.
* SharpDressedMan: Despite being gender-neutral, the Narrator is always dressed in a black suit.
* SheIsAllGrownUp: Linda
* ShotgunWedding: Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, and [[spoiler: Mickey and Linda.]]
* SiblingTriangle
* SpiritAdvisor: In some productions, The Narrator, though it's usually played that he is on nobody's side.
* SundayIsBoring: Mickey has a whole song about how bored and lonely his on a particularly "Long Sunday Afternoon."
* SurpriseMultipleBirth: What kickstarts the plot. Mrs. Johnstone is pregnant and can barely afford to take care of one more child, so when she finds out she's having twins, she gives one to her wealthy, childless neighbour Mrs. Lyons.
* SwornBrothers: Former TropeNamer. When Mickey and Eddie meet as children, they decide to become “[[TitleDrop Blood Brothers]]” to solidify their best friend-ship.
* TakingTheHeat: [[spoiler:Mickey does this for Sammy when the latter participates in an armed robbery.]]
* TeachersPet: In Mickey's secondary school there is a student called Perkins, who constantly puts up his hand and calls out "Sir!" for every question the teacher asks.
* ThoseWackyNazis: "Sonny's a Nazi!"
* ThreatBackfire: When Ms. Lyons starts changing the deal on her, Mrs. Johnstone threatens to go to the police. Lyons shoots back that Johnstone will be in ''far'' more trouble for 'selling her son'.
* {{Troll}}: The Narrator can come off as this, especially in his interactions with Mrs. Lyons - see Gypsies in the Wood and Secrets in particular.
%% * TroubledButCute: Mickey.
%% * TwoGuysAndAGirl: Mickey, Eddie, and Linda.
%% * VillainSong: Depending on the production, "Shoes Upon the Table" can be played this way.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Mrs. Johnstone, who's had eight children back to back and had to deal with her husband abandoning her, as well as the poverty she is in.
--> '''Mrs. Johnstone''':: By the time that I was twenty-five\\
I looked like forty-two\\
With seven hungry mouths to feed\\
And one more nearly due
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