New production images released from the Blood Brothers autumn tour

A new set of production photographs has been released from the autumn 2026 UK tour of Blood Brothers, the Willy Russell musical that passed 10,000 performances during its run in London's West End. The pictures were taken by Jack Merriman and show the current touring company, which is at the Oxford Playhouse until Saturday 26 September.

Vivienne Carlyle plays Mrs Johnstone, with Sean Jones as Mickey and Joe Sleight as his twin brother Eddie, the casting announced in August. The Narrator changes hands during the run: Kristofer Harding performs the role until the Chester dates, after which Richard Munday takes it on from Birmingham through to Northampton. Tricia Adele Turner plays Mrs Lyons and Beth Danher plays Linda.

The rest of the company is made up of Jamil Abbasi as the Neighbour, Sarah Moss as Donna Marie and Miss Jones, Amelia Poggenpoel as Brenda and Jack Anthony Smart as Perkins. Four performers return to parts they have played before: Tim Churchill as Mr Lyons, Michael Gillette as Sammy, Alex Harland as the Policeman and Teacher, and Graeme Kinniburgh as the Bus Conductor and Postman.

After Oxford the tour travels to Chelmsford, Grimsby, Chester, Birmingham, Leicester, Crawley and Malvern, and closes its 2026 dates at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton on Saturday 28 November. A spring leg follows, opening at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend on Tuesday 12 January 2027 and taking in a further seventeen towns and cities before it finishes at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury on Saturday 22 May 2027. Casting for the spring dates has yet to be announced.

Russell wrote Blood Brothers as a play for a Liverpool comprehensive school in 1981, and it opened at the Liverpool Playhouse two years later. It has since been staged in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan, has won four Best Musical awards in London and was nominated for seven Tony Awards on Broadway. The Sunday Times called it "one of the best musicals ever", and the production has been nicknamed the "Standing Ovation Musical" after the response described by the Daily Mail, which wrote that it "brings the audience cheering to its feet and roaring its approval".

The story follows twins separated at birth and raised on opposite sides of the same city, unaware of one another until a meeting years later carries them towards a tragic end. Mrs Johnstone, deserted by her husband and left to feed seven children, takes work as a housekeeper and then finds that she is expecting twins; the pact she makes with her employer in a moment of desperation sets everything that follows in motion.

The production is directed by Bob Tomson and Bill Kenwright, with Tim Churchill as resident director and Matt Malone as music supervisor. Set and costumes are by Andy Walmsley, lighting is by Nick Richings and sound is by Dan Samson. The running time is 2 hours 45 minutes including an interval.

Russell is among the best known British dramatists of his generation, and his other work includes Educating Rita, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and later filmed with Michael Caine and Julie Walters, and Shirley Valentine, filmed with Pauline Collins and Tom Conti and returned to the West End in 2023 with Sheridan Smith.