"Blood Brothers" is set in Liverpool in the early eighties. The play follows the life of two main characters: Eddie Lyons and Mickey Johnstone. The play has proved extremely popular with audiences of all ages. In this essay I aim to consider all the dramatic qualities of the play and how Willy Russell uses them to promote the dramatic effectiveness of the play. In Blood Brothers' the characters fall into two stereotypical groups: the working class Johnstones and their associates, and the middle class Lyons. It seems ironic that although the Johnstone family live on the breadline they start off cheerfully, compared to the Lyons who never seem content. This makes the audience what is wrong in the lives of both families and created dramatic tension. The main characters, Eddie and Mickey are people that we can relate to: we feel pathos with them as they face the trials and tribulations of life. Russell uses pathos to involve the audience so they feel pity when Mickey loses his job, fear at the end of the play when the shooting scene takes place, and experience childhood joy when Eddie and Mickey share jokes. Humour, in its various forms, plays a large part in Blood Brothers'. It keeps the audience interested and balances out the conflict and sadness in the play. Throughout the play we experience different types of humour such as the use of a pun when Mickey and Eddie are discussing Sammy's head. Mickey tells Edward about Sammy having a metal plate put in his head when he had an accident. Edward says: "A side plate?" and Mickey replies: "No, it's on top." This pun leads to misunderstanding due the children's innocence and the way they are oblivious to the double meaning makes the conversation amusing. We experience incongruity when Edward and his mother argue and Eddie says:" You're a fuckoff!" He has picked up this bad language from his new friends and it sounds totally out of place with his surroundings, which is what makes the audience laugh, as it is completely unexpected.
