Could your school be the host for Willy Russell in June 2026?
1st November 2025
Teaching Blood Brothers at GCSE or A Level? Get your students revising the key themes with the Methuen Drama Student Edition of Blood Brothers. The newly published Methuen Drama Student Edition of Blood Brothers includes the full play text and introductory commentary by Rebecca Hillman, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communications, Drama and Film at the University of Exeter, UK, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens.
As well as helping students appreciate the play today, the commentary also conveys how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.
Alongside their revision, get your students to enter the Methuen Drama Student Scene-Writing Competition!
Continuing the celebrations of the newly published Student Edition, Bloomsbury are excited to launch a scene-writing competition for students aged 14-19. Drawing on ideas, themes and dramatic inspiration in Willy Russell’s popular school play Blood Brothers, students are invited to write their own scene on the theme of social class - and can enter either as individuals or get together as a group to write.
One winning entry will be chosen by the expert judging panel, including the one-and-only Willy Russell, and will be offered the chance to host Willy and Rebecca Hillman, the editor of the Blood Brothers Student Edition, in a live Q&A session at their school in June 2026.
The winning entry will also be awarded with a free two-hour Blood Brothers workshop by the wonderful people at Stage-Ed and will win a class set of the Blood Brothers Student Edition!
To enter the competition, download your entry pack here. You’ll find further competition details, writing tips and resources to help with your students’ entries. Entries close on the 17th April 2026. Good luck!
Blood Brothers
Russell, Willy
Paperback / softback
Willy Russell’s 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath. After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London’s West End, as well as extensively touring the UK. This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.
More Details