Review: Theatre

King's Theatre, Glasgow

Marianne Gunn

NOW in its third decade, Willy Russell's Blood Brothers has been a smash success story on an artistic level - but with the added bonus of also being a box-office hit.

In this touring production, casting Wet Wet Wet's Marti Pellow is another clever trick to snare an audience (especially on home turf in Glasgow). As the spectral Narrator, the Clydebank crooner highlights the themes of superstition and, thankfully, the score dictates there are no overly long sustained notes for him (something that featured too prominently in his summer gigs with the Wets).

Maureen Nolan is the other draw. She is the fourth Nolan sister to play the heartbreaking role of Mrs Johnstone - a piece of musical theatre trivia that has made the Guinness Book of World Records.

Her performance builds nicely in Act One, but it is in the final chilling moments of this modern tragedy that her acting really hits home.

This gritty kitchen-sink drama also provides one of those rare things, a complicated female character whose choices determine the plot (doubly rare for more mature female actors).

The Johnstone twins (the Blood Brothers of the piece) provide the laughs and then, cleverly, the pathos. Sean Jones is an expert Mickey, morphing from an exuberant seven-year-old boy into a drug-addicted ex-con. Jones has previously played the part in London's West End, and this contrasts with the fact that Joel Benedict, trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, is making his professional debut as "fortuitous" twin brother Eddie.

The playing out of their brotherly bond - Shakespearean in its scope, with more than just a nod to Greek tragedy - makes the drama come alive. The fact it has mass appeal is likely to assure many more years on the worldwide stage.