REVIEW: Willy Russell's Blood Brothers, Mayflower, Southampton, until Saturday, October 9.

Another tour, another Mrs Johnstone and another standing ovation - and so richly deserved.

It's impossible to think of another musical that wraps you up in its world quite so completely as Blood Brothers does - a superb piece of theatre which offers plenty of laughs, some glorious music and then tugs at your heartstrings as hard as you'd ever want them tugged.

For years, Mrs Johnstone was a Nolan, but Niki Evans confirms herself as a worthy successor in the role with a spirited and touching performance as the impoverished mum induced to give away a twin.

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Superstition and class do the rest. Mrs Johnstone becomes convinced that her boys will die if they ever learn the secret of their separation, and die they surely do, as the opening scene makes clear.

The musical then takes you through their tale to get you back to the tragedy with which it all began.

Sean Jones (Mickey) and Paul Davies (Eddie) are terrific as the brothers linked by blood but growing up across the social divide. They recreate all the energy and imagination of boyhood and then evoke all the awkwardness of adolescence before their paths fatefully diverge.

Jones charts Mickey's decline into a shuffling, drug-dependent wreck with heart-breaking power. All the hope of the song Bright New Day is shattered as the Marilyn Monroe refrain returns with chilling new meaning. Tell Me It's Not True is the devastating final number.

Stand back and it's a batty story, but in its portrayal of fear, love, superstition and loss, the show is unbeatably brilliant, a modern tragedy and a modern masterpiece.

Phil Hewitt

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