Blood Brothers

It surely must be a lovely accolade, for Axminster Drama Club’s Youth division, that many people in the town of Axminster believe that they have been going and performing for years, when the truth of the matter is this sub division of Axminster’s Drama Club have actually only been running for one year, starting with last year’s fantastic Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. If this, on its own, is not enough to swell the chest of every ADC-Youther than the fact that many of the young cast are actually already very well-known names around the town, for their acting ability, should prove that the future of Axminster Drama Club is in very safe hands indeed.

Following up last years, very successful, Joseph, it would have been easy for ADC Youth to continue in the same vein and perform another musical or kid friendly production, however instead of this easier route they decided to perform Willy Russell’s play, Blood Brothers. The version chosen, by ADC Youth, was the one born in 1981 in Fazakerley Comprehensive and written, specifically, for Merseyside’s Young People’s Company. Anyone who is aware of this play, regardless of the version shown, knows that it contains some pretty adult themes, and language, which makes it a rather ambitious and precarious choice, rather than the safe bet of another musical. Of course the big question is, how would Axminster audiences react to this choice?

During the wait for the show to begin, ADC Youth, had a projection of their "Blood Brothers" logo projected onto a cloth in front of the curtains. This was a new idea for ADC and, not only did it look incredibly effective, it was also almost a hidden message, as much to say "tonight, you are going to see something new".

As the curtain opened, the audience were greeted with a very simple, but effective set consisting of two rooms, in two separate houses and separated by a platform on top of scaffolding. As the play progressed it was obvious that this was the only staging that was to be seen, although occasionally the introduction of the odd prop was made to suggest that the action had moved to a park or factory etc…  This was a very good idea and meant that the staging was very secure and minimised the need for lots of, time consuming, set changes. It also helped to give the production a very abstract quality.  A particular favourite was the "Factory" scene, which was represented by a sign and a never ending cycle of boxes, very effective indeed.

The costumes, supplied by Sara Leat, were also very good and grounded the play well.  It was good to see the balance between the clothes of The Johnston Family and The Lyons Family, the clothes alone said so much about the characters.  These looked even more impressive when next to the basic black shirts of the narrators.

The lighting and sound were handled by Jack Price; Ashley Roy; Peter Simpson and Dave Tulloch of Total Productions.  First of all, the sound was perfect, sometimes ADC productions have had issues with feedback, due to the sheer size of The Guildhall, but not here, where the sound quality was lovely.  It was also good that all the head mics were turned on at the right time, I know that seems a strange thing to say as you would imagine it should be a bit of a given but I have seen so many productions recently where beginnings of speeches have been cut off due to the slow reactions of the sound engineers, this even includes productions at The Octagon Theatre in Yeovil where, and this is not a dig at ADC, the sound engineers are paid a lot more, so well done to everyone involved.  I know ADC has asked Dave Tulloch to be involved in the next couple of productions to help them maximise their sound quality, and based on the sound of this production, this is certainly a great idea that will help elevate ADC in the future.  The lighting for this production was very good and the lights gave a suitably moody quality to several elements of the play.  During the first act there was the sickening sound, and flash, of a bulb popping above the audience’s head, surely an event that has the ability to turn any strong lightening engineer into a quivering emotional wreck!  Speaking to Jack Price, during the interval, I discovered that the light that popped was quite integral to the lighting plan for Blood Brothers, a lighting plan that had taken all Sunday to complete due to a technical issue, however Jack, somehow continued to smile, and was confident that he could resolve the problem.  Early on in the second act, there was a split second where the stage clearly went too dark and that was it, problem then resolved.  I knew the light had popped, because I was told and I heard it, but based on the production itself you would have never known, and I am sure many of the audience still don’t.  Well done to ADC, a true sign of their professionalism to ensure that “the show must go on”.

For any production that you put on getting the casting right, must be one of the hardest decisions and, knowing the talent of ADC Youth members, I certainly do not envy the hard task that directors Sara Leat and Jack Price faced, having to only choose a few.  Having spoken to the two directors, early on in the rehearsal period, I discovered that they had decided to cast younger actors in the first act, playing the lead characters as children.  What a brave decision, especially considering the dark themes of the production, and it would certainly seem a prudent question to ask if the younger members of the cast could deal with such adult themes.  A prudent question maybe, but a completely redundant one, every single member of the cast (which ran from 7 years old to 18) did a fantastic job of portraying their characters and dealing with emotions and themes that they would not have had to deal with in their own lives, in fact it is not too strong to say that they would have given many adult performers a run for their money. 

At the centre of the plot was Georgie Harwood as Mrs Johnston, a woman who finds herself low on money but high on children and ends up giving one away to make ends meet. Georgie played this role so well, that you could literally feel her emotion coming off the stage. Not only that but, strangely, she even seemed to age on the stage in front of us, all through the use of acting!  I think it is safe to say that, if Georgie chooses, one day her mum will be reviewing her on the West End Stage. Due to the high number of talented performers, this role was split with Georgie playing her on Friday and Sunday and Katie Richards playing her Thursday and Saturday, unfortunately I didn’t get to see Katie in this role but having seen her in previous productions I am sure she too would have given her all to this role. Playing opposite Georgie was Keziah Foster as Mrs Lyons, Keziah’s performance was a masterclass in emotion, and her portrayal of a woman in a mental decline was incredibly powerful. 

The narrators were performed by Lucy; Edi; Katy; India; Louise and Isobel and it was nice to see this role divided between several young performers. The narrators were all dressed the same, in a black Blood Brothers t-shirt and the use of the lighting and their position, atop the scaffolding tower, gave them an otherworldly kind of vibe, almost as some sort omnipresent entities witnessing the events from on high, very dramatic and very effective. Lucy Bradbury seemed to be the lead narrator and performed her lines with a suitably scouse accent, Lucy obviously has a great grasp of the dramatic and her delivery of lines was very moody and dark, unfortunately due to the strong scouse accent, I did struggle to hear most of what Lucy said, which was a bit of a shame as she was clearly putting so much into her performance with great use of stares and looks.

However, this is a play about three friends, Mickey; Eddie and Linda, and however good the mums and the narrators are the play would fail if the actors portraying these characters could not manage to handle the emotion and drama in this play.  As already mentioned, ADC Youth made the decision to cast two actors for each role (three in the case of Linda, two actresses alternating the role of 14+ Linda during the run), an interesting decision which payed off incredibly well for them. The younger incarnation of the characters was played by Matilda Leat; Ewan Roy and Emily Newton, saying they played these characters is probably a little unfair actually as, in reality, they WERE these characters! What amazing performances by such young actors, the three of them bounced of each other so well, that I could have happily watched them all night and I, and I dare say the audience, completely bought into the fact that they were best friends and blood brothers. Here are three youngsters that clearly have a bright career in acting ahead of them, if they wished to pursue it and could easily show some adult performers a thing or two. They portrayed some pretty strong emotions and dealt with equally strong language and themes with an ease and maturity that outshone their age.  Although, what on earth was with the wig that Matilda was wearing!!

During the interval Mickey; Eddie and Linda dramatically aged 7 years and morphed into James Windsor; Tobi Rouse and, the night I came, Jessica Leat. At first it seemed that these three were going to have an incredibly hard job, managing to take over from the strong performances of Act One, but no in an almost anything you can do we can do better move, they managed to elevate the quality even higher, definitely not an easy task.  What was particularly nice was that the older performers had the same mannerisms and movements as their younger counterparts, I can only imagine this was no accident. Tobi Rouse played the older Eddie with a fair degree of wetness, here was a guy who had missed out on his one true love, to his one real best friend, whilst he was away bettering himself at university (highlighting the yin and the yang situation between the two ‘brothers’). Eddie continually ‘helps’ Mickey to better his life, but is it for Mickey or because of Eddie’s true love for Linda, played by Jessica Leat. There was a real strong chemistry between Tobi and Jess, possibly helped by the fact that they are a genuine couple off-stage. Jess was another performer who turned in a fantastically emotional performance, she really managed to get the audience on her side and we all felt for her as we could see Mickey dragging her down emotionally and physically during the course of the play, even willing her to see sense and allow Eddie into her heart. As the play progressed towards its dramatic conclusion, you could actually see the worry and the torment in every move Jess made. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Jessica Richards in this role but, again, having seen Jess in previous productions I have no doubt her performance would have been just as strong. Rounding off the older trio was James Windsor as 14-year-old Mickey, without a horrible wig. I do not believe that there are enough superlatives to describe the quality of either of the actors who portrayed Mickey, both of them brought so much to their portrayal. Matilda as the younger Mickey was full of youthful energy, literally bouncing around the stage and getting into trouble.  James, as the older Mickey, started the second act still bouncing around but as the play progressed and the weight of the world started bearing down on him, this enthusiasm dissipated into weariness and paranoia. James’ performance was excellent and you could really see his inner turmoil, he even seemed to physically age as the play and his torment progressed. James’ Mickey seemingly turning to some form of drug or alcohol abuse as the play progressed, although this was only referenced when Mickey goes to ‘sort out’ Eddie, it was clearly obvious that this was being inferred by James’ performance.

When writing a review, it is hard to be able to dedicate the time and space to talk about every performer on the stage, obviously dedicating the space to those main performers in the production. However, I would like to just add a few words to praise all the other performers. This was a production where everyone worked hard and not one person was not giving 100% to their part, whether big or small. It was clear that everyone was really enjoying being in this production, regardless of its strong and depressing content, and there was a real sense of teamwork amongst the cast. This was definitely evident when everyone met the audience and you could really sense that the cast had bonded throughout this production.

At the beginning of this review the question was asked, how would audiences react to the more risqué choice of this dark play, with its rather strong themes, rather than roll out another, safe bet, musical. I think, evidenced by the fact that they had standing ovations for all four nights and the amazing rush of positive praise that has filled Facebook and the town, they took to it really well indeed and so they should, this was an incredibly competent production by a group of very gifted performers lead by two of the best directors in the local area (after my good self of course!). This was definitely the best youth production I have seen since being a Noda rep and, easily one of the best, full stop.  Well done to everyone involved, you should all be incredibly proud of what you achieved. This was a perfect example of how great amateur theatre can be, and the only negative thing from it, is that we have to wait over a year to see what ADC Youth do next. Whatever that production is, it has very big shoes to fill but, something tells me ADC Youth will be up for the challenge.

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