I suppose the big difference was with the previous shows they had been plays with songs, whereas with Blood Brothers I wanted it to be composed, not sung-through as such, but I wanted to think about the way the music related to the story, rather than putting individual songs everywhere. How did you get the idea of the story? I was walking along one day; I lifted my right foot and by the time I put my foot down I had the story.
Sometimes that happens, but very very very rarely. Thinking back, when I was at my first secondary school when I was eleven, I do remember somehow being involved in some class that was looking at a play. And I have this dim memory of the idea of a baby being taken in one direction and its nurture being decided by which baby was taken from a pram. Human beings generally seem to have quite a fascination with twins. What I was interested in was what happens to them when they go their separate ways.
If she picked the other one out of the pram, would it have been any different? When did you take the leap to compose the whole of Blood Brothers yourself? I was frightened of doing it for years.
I had the entire story — I would often be on the point of going to sleep and I would think of another idea, so the story was building over many years. When Blood Brothers first went on tour around schools, what kind of feedback did you get from those audiences? Absolutely fantastic. But they are the most difficult audience on this earth.
I know because I was one of those kids myself once. How horrendous it is to be patronised or condescended to or made to suffer some crap. I knew it was my job to hook the most disinterested, antipathetic little buggers sitting at the back.
The ones like me all those years ago! The show was coming up to 70 minutes so they just had that time off. Five actors would have to walk into the middle of that space.
Then without any lights or scenery and a minimum of props, just go bang! And I have to say I never saw it fail to do that. When they meet years later, they become great friends, but the story is not to end happily.
In choosing the epistolary form, Russell was able to ease his transition into the world of prose fiction: his first novel is essentially a series of dramatic monologues. Raymond, a year old from Manchester, addresses his letters to his hero Morrissey. He is a natural misfit, and cut from typical Russell cloth. Working class, Northern, full of secret yearnings and longings, desperate to get out yet somehow resigned to being incapable of doing so, he is Rita and Shirley but with an extra dose of the pathetic.
Whereas they possess some central core of inner strength, Raymond is, for much of the time, forever at the mercy of others, outside of control of his own life, misunderstood, drifting into patterns that people seem intent on creating for him.
The Wrong Boy is a road movie of a novel, Raymond being en route from Manchester to Grimsby; and it is also a recreation of the past in which Raymond has suffered from misunderstandings so great that they have quite literally blighted his life.
It is all written in one defiantly subjective voice. As Raymond takes us back and forth through his own madness we are forced to ask ourselves how much of it is real. The Wrong Boy is heartbreaking, funny, charming and absolutely compelling.
However, Russell allows it to fall into too neat a trap at its conclusion, whereby coincidence, and the desire for a heart-warming conclusion contrive to produce an ending that falls into sentimentality. Yet there is something oddly satisfying about this, for so real is Raymond, that you cannot help but long for this kind of denouement, you care so much about him that you almost need the relief of knowing that everything might be all right.
Russell will perhaps forever be the kind of writer written about in vaguely patronising terms by the serious London press. He has been dismissed by some as 'the housewives' choice'. The only thing that can be said is that the housewives of Great Britain have commendable taste. We're looking for someone with a passion for literature from a variety of cul… 2 days ago. Do you want to work with international partner on an a… 1 months ago. We hope you enjoyed the night as much as we did.
We publish a Literature Newsletter when we have news and features on UK and international literature, plus opportunities for the industry to share. To subscribe to the newsletter, until further notice, please press the subscribe button. You may unsubscribe at any time by following the unsubscribe link in the newsletter. We will process your personal information based on your consent. It was an instant success and, after its 12 week run there, Bob Swash transferred it immediately to the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, where it opened on 11th April But, despite outstanding reviews and public acclaim from those who saw it, it was slow to catch on in London.
The theatre managers, nervous about its prospects, booked another production to follow it. It was too late to reverse the decision to shut the show to make way for its replacement. But the run ended on a high, with sell-out houses and extraordinary disappointment by everyone involved that it had had its life unfairly cut short. As a result, says Russell, "it always felt like unfinished business to me. Blood Brothers, however, refused to die. The rights were released to repertory companies and many productions followed around the country, as well as abroad.
Enter, now, Bill Kenwright, the prolific presenter of West End and touring productions, like Russell himself a native Liverpudlian although they did not know each other. Bill acquired the rights to produce a national tour, and he and Russell finally met when they drove together to see it.
Together they got to work on improving a production that Russell had immediately recognised as terrifically well cast - "and if you cast well," he adds, "you can always sort everything else out.
But Russell was wary of seeing it return to the West End: "I didn't want to diminish the memory of the original - there'd been such a warm feeling towards it in We booked the tickets in his name, so no one knew I was coming, and he was spellbound, and so were 2, other people in the auditorium.
I sat there thinking, "What am I doing denying it a lifeblood in the West End?
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