Focus Birmingham

by Vidar Hjardeng

Willy Russell’s musical, Blood Brothers, remains perhaps one of Britain’s most popular musicals, and it was once again being staged at the Hippodrome to packed houses last week, starring Nicky Evans from X Factor as the long-suffering, and ultimately tragic, Mrs Johnston. The story of the luckless Johnston twins still brings a lump to my throat, even though I have seen the show a number of times, several with audio description. It remains a particular favourite however, and once again – this time courtesy of Jonathan Nash from Sightlines - I got something different out of the ‘live’ commentary.

Jonathan, along with the theatre’s very helpful Access and Front of House teams, was on hand to escort a particularly large group of fellow visually impaired patrons and their companions, through the auditorium and up onto the stage for the 1 pm pre-show touch tour. Here we were told about the set featuring dilapidated inner city Liverpool, where the Johnston family live, before being re-housed in the more countrified social housing outside the city. We were also shown a number of the props, including milk bottles and a vacuum cleaner and many other everyday items from the 1950’s in which the play was set, and a number of those on the tour got quite nostalgic as they literally got a feel for these objects which they remembered the first time round.

Back in the very crowded foyer the theatre staff distributed headsets so that those who wished could take their seats, and avail themselves of Jonathan’s introductory notes with details of characters and their costumes, which were presented live a quarter of an hour before curtain-up.

I am pretty confident that this is by no means the first time that Jonathan has described Blood Brothers, but what came through our headsets was the same infectious enthusiasm that I suspect Jonathan exuded the first time he ever described it. Moreover in a show of over 2 and a half hours, he had his work cut out since, unusually, he was working on his own and there was an awful lot to describe.
As with many musicals the story line is pretty clear through the lyrics of songs such as Tell Me It’s Not True, and the role of the narrator, on stage throughout most of the play, but without the audio description it would have been impossible to share in some of the play’s infrequent, but nevertheless amusing, comic moments.

The next audio-described performance at the Birmingham Hippodrome will be another more recent musical, Hair Spray on Friday 5 November, and details on ticket prices, how to book headsets and places on the touch tour, can be obtained from the box office on 0844 338 5000.