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Blood Brothers' at The Grand Theatre, Leeds, until November 24.

A five minute standing ovation with at least half a dozen curtain calls is very rare in the theatre these days. However, this is what happened at the opening night of Blood Brothers' at the Grand Theatre.

This is an excellent musical with the words and lyrics by Willie Russell with the show set in his home town of Liverpool during the 1950s and 1960s.

The story centres on Mrs Johnstone a working class Catholic with a large family who, shortly after her husband has left her, discovers she is again pregnant. To her dismay it is twins.

She works as a cleaner for for Mrs Lyons who has not been able to have children. Mrs Lyons suggests that as her husband is away abroad for six months she takes one of the babies and convinces her husband that she was pregnant before he left and it is their child. The show moves on to when the boys are seven, meet in a play area and despite their class differences admire qualities in each other and become good friends.

They discover that they were born on the same day but never realise they are twins. They form a pact, cut their thumbs and join them together to become Blood Brothers'.

Their mothers discover they now know each other. Mrs Lyons persuades her husband to move out into the country. The inevitable happens and the boys again meet.

The acting and singing in this production are brilliant! Mrs Johnstone is played by Vivienne Carlyle who plays this dramatic part to perfection. Likewise the two boys - Mickey played by Anthony Costa (formerly with the boy band Blue) and Edward played by Simon Willmont - are both excellent. I particularly enjoyed the parts of the show when they are youngsters and the antics they get up to at that age.

The other principal to greatly impress was Keith Burns as the narrator. His sinister interventions during the story were extremely dramatic.

However, there is also much humour in the show, as one would expect from Russell's writing. But there is also much pathos as well. This combines to blend together into a great production.

As well as the three main characters, there is excellent support from the other 11 members of the cast.

This is a show to bring an ache to your ribs from the laughter and a lump to your throat from the sadness.

It is a tale of class divisions, united but then divided, and shows how as youngsters we can accept others but when older we become less tolerant of those from other classes and races.

Out of the five occasions now that I have seen this show this is probably the best performance I have encountered and I would recommend anyone to get to see it during the remainder of its run.

3:18pm Friday 23rd November 2007

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