APRIL 11 - 16 2005, BATH: From the pen and mind of the man who gave us Shirley Valentine and Educating Rita you can anticipate a gritty tale with raw emotion and razor-edged Liverpool humour.

Willy Russell's Blood Brothers has all of the above and his music too. Russell wrote songs as an itinerant singer, guitar player and poet, long before he turned his attention to playwriting.

You also know this is not a feel-good musical. It's going to end in tears because that's where it starts, at the end, and goes back to the beginning to chart the course of the tragedy.

Set in Liverpool where else for Russell it tells the story of twin brothers, separated at birth because their mother, Mrs Johnstone, is too poor to feed two more mouths in an already overpopulated house, with her husband gone, and the bailiffs for ever at the door.

Mrs Lyons, the middle class woman whose house she cleans begs her to give her one of the babies as she can have none of her own, and it would ease Mrs Johnstone's burden at the same time. Mr Lyons is working away, conveniently for nearly nine months, and she passes the baby off as their own child.

Since the families live on opposite sides of the social tracks the mothers plan that the boys will never meet, but fate decrees otherwise with funny, quirky, and ultimately fatal consequences.

Linda Nolan, one of The Nolans family of singers, is irresistible as Mrs Johnstone. She is utterly convincing as a warm, happy-go-lucky, tough character, battling against the worst that life can throw at her and still coming up smiling. She also has a terrific voice.

The two boys are played by Sean Jones as Mickey, the son Mrs Johnstone kept, and Drew Ashton as Eddie Lyons, the one given away.

Both give performances of great integrity, even as little boys, and one suspects all the actors playing children have enormous fun recreating the street games and imaginary horses for their cowboy alter-egos to ride upon.

For a time the unknowing twins share their love and friendship with Linda Linzi Matthews who is another of the assets of this cast.

The omnipotent figure throughout is the narrator, Keith Burns who through Russell's poignant, poetic script, evokes an era of rising unemployment, and bitter class divide.

You won't necessarily come out humming the music, which is very much in context, but you'll love it and probably want to hear it again.

The Bath audience gave the show rare standing ovation on the first night.

Jo Bayne

Blood Brothers by Willy Russell

Theatre Royal, Bath