BEXLEY GRAMMAR SCHOOL PERFORMING ARTS
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Blood Brothers

Links To Help You

Videos of full production
Litchart study guide
Your scenes
BBC Bitesize (for English, but still useful)

Themes

Picture


Guns 

The boys play with Guns as a kids game, they are inocent play thigns back then- but theya re still obsessed with them. Edward gives Mickey a toy gun when he moves away, they play with an air gun. Even as Teens they shoot a gun at the fun fair. Then as adults Guns cause both their deaths (and Mickey's imprisonment.

Picture
Social Class

As Children and Teenagers the differences in the boys resulting from their economic circumstances are not a problem, they in fact make them like each other (Mickey likes that Edward gives him sweets, Edward likes that Mickey says swear words).
As children it is just clothes and accent, as adults it is the choices and opotunities they have- which is why it is not fair on Mickey

Picture
Fate and Superstition
The Narrator represents the superstition that the boys will die at the end of the play and can't escape this fate. Initially it is the working class Mrs J who is superstitious (shoes on the table, swearing on the bible)- but madness drives Mrs L to be superstitious too.

Picture
Friendship/ Brotherhood/ Family

The boys have great loyalty to each other as 'blood brothers', all they want is to be friends and support each other (Edwards wears the locket well after he moves away and hasn't seen Mickey for years)

Mickey idolises his brother Sammy as a child, then is unable to avoid living the same lifestyle.

Picture
Parenting

Based on the prologue of the Narrator- the whole play is about us 'judging for ourselves how the mother (Mrs J) came to play her part'(sic) Mrs J is a loving Mother and is naturally warm, but financially is unable to give her children opportunity- Mrs L can afford to give Edward all he wants, but we see her hit Edward and let her paranoia come between their relationship. So who had the better unbringing?

Also it's totally Mrs L's fault they die, she told Mickey about Linda and Edward!

Picture
The Role of The Woman

It is actually, in many ways, the fault of the 3 main female characters that Mickey and Edward die- but also the play explores traditional gender roles.

husbands are basically absent (Mr Lyons always working, Mr J has left the family) Women are destined to become mothers- Linda and Donna Marie both become pregnant, Mrs L can't get pregnant, she feels like a failure as a woman.

Mickey feels imasculated by Linda in 'The Pills' scene- she sorted out a house and a job and not him, he earlier feels bad about being unable to provide for his family (you're a D-head scene).

Linda doesn't want to be just a housewife (Narrator- there's a girl inside the woman waiting to get out) hence the affair with Edward.

The thing that drive Mickey to crime is actually Linda- he commits the robbery so he can take her out, he wants to shoot Edward because of the affair.

Picture
Growing Up

The play is essentially a portrait of Mickey, Edward and Linda growing up- we see them at 7,14,18 and in their early 20s.

But also their is a sense of what 'Growing up' is, at 18 (you're a D Head) Mickey 'had to grow up' and Edward didn't. Pregnancy has forced young people to become adults.

As children the class devide did not matter, as 'grown ups' it did.

​

Videos to help

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  • Home
  • DRAMA
    • Drama skills and techniques >
      • Freeze frame/ Still image
      • Mime
      • Thought in The Head
      • Narration
    • Practitoners and theorists >
      • Alecky Blyth
      • Artaud
      • Berkoff
      • Brecht
      • Dario Fo
      • Godber
      • Stanislavski
    • Theatre Companies >
      • Complicite
      • DV8
      • Ex Machina
      • Fevered Sleep
      • Forced Entertainment
      • Forkbeard Fantasy
      • Frantic Assembly
      • Gecko
      • Kneehigh
      • The Paper Birds
      • Pig Pen Theatre
      • Punchdrunk
      • Trestle
      • Tangled feet
      • The Wooster Group
      • 1927
    • Theatre Styles and Traditions >
      • Commedia dell'arte
      • Creative Adaptation
      • Docudrama
      • Multimedia
      • Physical Theatre
      • Puppetry
      • Total Theatre
    • Design Element >
      • Lighting
    • Year 7 Drama >
      • Introduction to Drama
      • year 7 self assessment
      • Haunted Lift
      • Exam revision
    • Year 8 Drama >
      • year 8 exam revision
      • Romeo and Juliet
      • Anne Frank
      • previous year 8 >
        • 8MLO
        • 8EA
        • 8NSS
        • 8DJB
        • 8AWS
        • 8SFG
        • 8JR
        • 8JS
        • 8MPL
        • 8MML
        • 8RPP
        • 8WEA
    • Year 9 Drama >
      • Devising
      • Billy Liar
      • Theatre in Education
      • Blue Remembered Hills
      • KAG Year 9 self assessment
    • GCSE Drama >
      • Blood Brothers >
        • Blood Brothers full performance
      • GCSE (year 10) blog
      • Devising
      • Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time
      • GCSE Revision
    • IB Theatre and Lit and Performance >
      • IB blog
      • IB Theatre Blog 2015-16
    • Literature and Performance 2015
    • Archived pages >
      • A-Level Drama >
        • A Doll's House
        • Response To Live Theatre >
          • The Play That Goes Wrong
          • Dead Dog in a Suitcase
        • A Servant of Two Masters
        • Our Country's Good >
          • OCG lesson materials
          • act 1 videos
        • Supporting notes AS guidance
        • Supporting notes A2
      • Trip letters
      • 39 Steps
      • Camera Lucida
      • John
      • Old GCSE work >
        • Choral narration
        • Year 10- telling the story physically >
          • Bazier- Telling story to Music
  • MUSIC
    • INSTRUMENTAL LESSONS >
      • Terms & Conditions
    • Extra-curricular music 2022-23
    • IB Music
    • GCSE MUSIC >
      • GCSE MUSIC SET WORKS
  • PRODUCTIONS
    • The Ash Girl
    • Sister Act 2019 >
      • Sister Act CAST FORM
      • SAcharacters
      • SASongs
    • Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
    • SchoolOfRock >
      • SOR-CAST-FORM
      • SORcharacters
      • SORsong
    • Romeo and Juliet
    • Olivertwist
    • SPAMALOT!
    • Sound of Music 2016
    • Concert videos
    • QuizNight
    • TheWonderfulWizardofOz >
      • wiztops
    • Cinelive- Gregory's Girl at the Barbican
    • Peter Pan 2015
    • Beauty&Beast
    • As You Like It 2015
    • Alice in Wonderland 2015
    • FAME 2014
    • Summer Fayre 2014 Performing Arts Tent
    • Lion, Witch & the Wardrobe 2013
    • Shakespeare Schools Festival 2013
    • 'The Innocents' at The Barbican 2013
    • Hairspray 2013
  • Film Studies
    • Mr. Otley's film blog
    • Best film studies youtube
    • Film Podcasts