BLOOD BROTHERS by Willy Russell

Key Quotations

Kid Two:
‘’Ey Mam, how come I’m on free dinners? (6)

Mrs Lyons
‘I believe that an adopted child can become one’s own.’(8)

Mrs Johnstone
‘never put new shoes on a table…..You never know what’ll happen.’ (8)

Mrs Johnstone
‘The Welfare have already been on to me.’ (9)

Mrs Johnstone
‘kids can’t live on love alone’. (9)

Mrs Johnstone
‘And you’d never find him
Effin’ and blindin’. (11)

Mrs Lyons
‘We must make this a, erm, a binding agreement.’ (12)

Narrator
‘Now there’s no going back, for anyone.’ (13)

Narrator
‘But a debt is a debt, and must be paid.’ (13)

Finance Man
‘If y’ know y’ can’t pay, y’ shouldn’t bloody well sign. (13)

Mrs Lyons
‘I don’t want her to hold the baby, Richard. She;’s…I don’t want the baby to catch anything.’
(17)

Mrs Lyons
‘she’s cooing and cuddling as if she were his mother.’ (17)

Mrs Lyons
‘You sold your baby.’ (18)

Edward
(awed) ‘Pissed off. You say smashing things don’t you? Do you know any more words like
that? (23)

Edward
‘Don’t you know what a dictionary is?’ (23)

Mickey
‘we were born on the same day….that means we can be blood brothers.’ (24)

1
Mickey
‘See this means that we’re blood brothers, an’ that we always have to stand by each other.’
(25)

Sammy
‘He’s a friggin’ poshy.’ (25)

Mrs Johnstone
‘go home before the bogey man gets y’’ (27)

Mrs Lyons
‘it’s not me, it’s Edward. You should spend more time with him. I don’t want – I don’t want
him growing away from you.’ (28)

Mrs Lyons
‘There’s no such thing as a bogey man. It’s a – a superstition. The sort of thing a silly mother
might say to her children – “the bogey man will get you”.’ (28)

Mrs Lyons
‘you’re not the same as him.’ (29)

Edward
‘I like him more than you.’ (29)

Edward
‘You’re….you’re a fuckoff!’ (29)

Mrs Lyons
‘you see why I don’t want you mixing with boys like that! You learn filth from them and
behave like this like a, like a horrible little boy, like them. But you are not like them. You are
my son, mine, an you won’t, you won’t ever….’ (29)

Sammy
‘’Cos when we swear…we cross our fingers!’ (32)

Linda
‘When you die you’ll meet your twinny again, won’t y’?’ (33)

Mrs Lyons
‘if we stay here I feel that something terrible will happen, something bad. (35)

Mrs Lyons
‘it’s these people…these people that Edward has started mixing with. Can’t you see how he’s
drawn to them? They’re drawing him away from me.’ (35)

Mrs Lyons
(she rushes at the table and sweeps the shoes off.)

Policeman
‘Either you keep them in order, Missis, or it’ll be the courts for you, or worse, won’t it?

Policeman
‘I’d just dock his pocket money if I was you.’ (38)

Edward

2
‘It’s a magpie, never look at one magpie. It’s one for sorrow…’ (40)

Mrs Lyons
‘Edward, I think we can forget the silly things that Mickey said.’ (40)

ACT TWO

Conductor
‘No one get off without the price bein’ paid.’ (49)

Edward
‘You can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut! But you shall not take my locket!’ (51)

Narrator
‘…the broken looking glass.
Oh y’ know the devil’s got your number.’ (53)

Mickey
‘If I was like him
I’d know (singing) all the right words.’ (55)

Mickey
‘it sounds dead funny swearin’ in that posh voice.’ (56)

Narrator
‘the reckoning day’ (57)

Mickey
‘Oh thanks, mam. I love y’.’ (57)

Edward
‘She’s fabulous your ma’, isn’t she?’ (59)

Mrs Lyons
‘just for a hile I came to believe that he was actually mine.’ (59)

Mrs Lyons
‘Even when – when he was a tiny baby I’d see him looking straight at me and I’d he
think, he knows…he knows. (pause.) You have ruined me. (Pause.) But you won’t ruin
Edward! Is it money you want?’ (59)

Mrs Johnstone
‘You bought me off once before…’ (60)

Mrs Lyons
‘I curse the day I met you. You ruined me.’ (60)

Mrs Lyons
‘I curse you. Witch! (60)

Edward
(after a pause): ‘He’s mad. If I was Mickey I would have asked you years ago.’ (65)

Edward

3
(singing): If I could stand inside his shoes I’d say, How can I compare thee to a
summer’s day. (65)

Edward
‘If I was the guy, if I
Was in his shoes…
…If it was me.’ (65)

Narrator
‘someone said the bogey man was seen around the town.’ (67)

Mrs Johnstone
‘you’ve not had much of a life with me, have y’?’
Mickey
‘Don’t be stupid, course I have. You’re great, you are, Mam.’ (67)

Mickey
‘there’s very little to celebrate, Eddie.’ (70)

Edward
‘why is a job so important?’ (71)

Mickey
‘No I don’t want your money, stuff it.’ (71)

Mickey
‘In your shoes I’d be the same, I’d still be able to be a kid. But I’m not in your shoes, I’m
in these, lookin’ at you. An’ you make me sick right? (71)

Sammy
‘Look at y’ Mickey. What have y’ got? Nothin’, like me Mam. Where y’ takin y’ tart for
New Year? Nowhere.’ (72)

Narrator
‘There’s a black cat stalking and a woman who’s afraid’ (73)

Narrator
‘And maybe, if you counted ten and kept your fingers crossed…’ (74)
Mickey
‘I didn’t sort anythin’ out Linda. Not a job, not a house, nothin’. (77)

Mrs Johnstone
‘the price you’re gonna have to pay.’ (79)

Mickey
Just one thing I had left, Eddie – Linda – an’ I wanted to keep her’. (81)

Mickey
‘Why didn’t you give me away! (He stands glaring at her, almost uncontrollable with
rage.) I could have been….I could have been him!’ (82)

Narrator
‘And do we blame superstition for what came to pass? Or could it be what we, the
English, have come to know as class?’ (82)