Blood Brothers, Theatre Royal

michaelflynn61

Did anyone else go along to see Blood Brothers in the Theatre Royal in Waterford Recently?

I did and I have to say I was extremely disappointed. They did everything they could to hide the fact that it was Blood Brothers "The Play" (which I've never heard of before). Basically they did the show, sang the first song and left out all of the other songs, changing bits around to fill in the gaps. Apart from the fact that some of the acting and lighting was very bad and it wasn't a great production anyway (people were laughing at the end even though it is supposed to be a really sad ending) I felt really conned into thinking that I was goiing to see the musical blood brothers only to be dissappointed. At no point when I was booking was it made clear that this was a play adaptation of the musical rather than the musical itself and I really think it should have been. The first time I saw it say Blood Brothers "The Play" was when I got to the theatre to see the show. I even checked back on the website afterwards to make sure I hadn't missed something. The word play is only mentioned once when they say in the blurb that "this is a play that will leave you....". I think it was all very misleading.

I've done a bit of a search around and have found no reference to blood brothers "the play" anywhere else. I know it is quite often referred to as a play with songs and thats fine but this one only had one song!

Add to that that the introduction from the director in the programme was shocking. I kid you not, a 1st class child would have written something better. The grammar was simply shocking. Every single "I" was not capitalised, there were sentences that did not make sense, capitals used when they shouldn't have been and then not used in other places when they should have been. We had a quick look through and counted at least 30 mistakes. It was embarrassing.

Did anyone else see it and have any opinions?

athtrasna

Blood Brothers the play is the only version that the rights are available for to anyone who wants to stage it in Ireland outside of an official tour by Bill Kenwright Productions.

The play is quite commonly done here...so nothing odd about that. The blurb on the theatre's website refers to it as a play. The play and the musical are slightly different scripts, as often happens, they didn't change it from the musical, it's different. The play pre-dates the musical AFAIK....

from willyrussell.com "Blood Brothers, the musical...Willy wrote not only the book and the lyrics but also the score for his musical Blood Brothers, spending the whole of 1982 turning the small scale production of Blood Brothers into a full scale musical. Revising the book, writing the lyrics and composing all the music himself."

Sorry you were disappointed but a quick google of Blood Brothers and Waterford brings up numerous references to the play.

politicsdude

i heard that the one in london is brilliant

athtrasna

The musical is good, IMO it was better before it was updated a couple of years ago for the 20th anniversary. The Bill Kenwright tour usually makes it here every couple of years..I think I've seen it six times in the past 10 years.

michaelflynn61

The musical is great! I don't have a problem as such with the show being done as a play, I know you cannot get the rights to the musical. My problem is that it should have been made clear and it wasn't. I know there were small references but IMHO the advertising for the show was misleading.

The Willy Russell website bit you have there makes no reference to him writing the play. I did a web search and could find next to nothing about Blood Brothers The play, not saying its not done just saying I couldn't find anything.

I take your point about googling Blood Brothers and Waterford but when you are booking tickets to something like this you shouldn't have to go googling it to make sure its what you think it is should you? It should be mafe clear.

athtrasna

The play is the book the website refers to.