Blood Brothers is back in the region, albeit for only a few days. The Lichfield Garrick, where it runs until Saturday, is its only Midlands stop-off, and the show’s opening night at the venue played to a packed house. No surprises there; in the 40 years since its premiere, Willy Russell’s Olivier Award-winning ‘play with music’ has enjoyed 25 years in the West End - amassing in excess of 10,000 performances - and has also headed out on numerous national and global tours. To call it popular would be an understatement.

Originally developed as a school play, first staged in Liverpool before transferring to London in 1983, Blood Brothers tells an emotive, heart-breaking story about the separation of twins at birth. The action unfolds against a backdrop of class division, poverty and recession. Its central character is Mrs Johnstone, a young working-class mother who, deserted by her husband, has seven children to provide for on her own. Pregnant with twins and coming to the desperate realisation that she won’t be able to care for both of her babies, she finds herself having to make an unimaginable decision: to give away one of them to her employer, Mrs Lyons, who is not able to have children herself.

Blood Brothers takes us through an always enthralling exploration of nature versus nurture. Along the way it examines friendship, the experience of growing up, and why we make the decisions that we do. A narrator accompanies us throughout, telling an amazing story in which superstition is also a powerful thread - as is the idea, the certainty, that we will be found out for the decisions that we make.

Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyons decide to keep the twins apart and never talk about the other child’s existence. The boys meet by chance, however, and become firm friends. You laugh with them as they get to know each other and when they are reunited as teenagers. As young men they follow very different roads, and when their paths cross again, their mothers panic as a palpable sense of foreboding grows...

This is very much a musical from the 1980s and has not been reworked or reimagined for a modern audience. One-time X Factor contestant Niki Colwell Evans takes the iconic role of Mrs Johnstone and leads a strong cast that also includes Sarah Jane Buckley, Sean Jones, Joe Sleight and Danny Whitehead.

Avid fans of the show say that Blood Brothers gets better with each viewing. Last night was the first time I had seen it, and I found myself totally drawn into the lives of these flawed, very real people in a way I was not expecting. The show’s political and moral message is as relevant today as it was in the 1980s.

Tickets are selling fast. Don’t forget your hankie!

Four stars

Reviewed by Liz Day on Tuesday 5 September at the Lichfield Garrick Theatre. Blood Brothers continues to show at the venue until Saturday 9 September.