DO NOW ACTIVITY

Check you have completed

all IT coursework so far.
Next week will be your
first Drama Progress
Check. Make a note in
your planner of anything
you still need to complete
as home learning.
LESSON OBJECTIVES
& The Big Questions
To be able to talk about the
playwright Willy Russell and
create a fact file on him.

To consider WHY he wrote

Blood Brothers.
Who is Willy Russell?
Why did he write
Blood Brothers?
PROGRE
PROGRESS PROGRESS +
SS
THIS I can work
independently to
I can show creativity
and flair in my
presentation.
LESSON produce the set
sections of my
coursework. My coursework is
detailed, informative
and clear.
I can use the teacher
templates and I have taken care over
questions to SPAG.
demonstrate my
understanding.

TI ON
C
I STIN
D
PAS
S
 BLOOD BROTHERS
• When was he born? WHO MADE IT?
• Where is he from? PLAYWRIGHT WILLY RUSSELL

• What are a lot of his

plays about?
• How did he become a
playwright?
• What other plays has he
written?
• What inspired him to
write Blood Brothers?
• Pick out some relevant
quotes from the
interview with him.
Born in 1947 to a working class family near Liverpool, Russell’s BLOOD BROTHERS
upbringing greatly influenced the plays he wrote as they explore
social class a lot, working class struggles and are always set in
WHO MADE IT?
PLAYWRIGHT WILLY RUSSELL
Liverpool.

Russell became a hairdresser upon leaving school at 15 but at the

age of 21 he decided to go back to college where he qualified as a
teacher. During this time he also wrote and performed folk music.
He also began writing drama and in 1972 he took a programme of
three one-act plays to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. There, he
caught the attention of writer John McGrath who recommended
him to the Liverpool Everyman theatre.

Some of the well known plays he has written are Stags and Hens,
Educating Rita and Our Day Out. All of these plays explore political
issues of the 1980s and how the economic recession made
inequality and class division worse. The government in charge at
the time would have greatly affected his opinions as there was a lot
of unease around the working class and unemployment.

Blood Brothers is probably the most famous of all his plays and he
says that he was inspired to write the story after reading about
twins who had been separated at birth. He says the thought of this
“Sent shivers down my spine.” He also says he wrote it as he was
pondering “nature versus nurture” – in other words, does the way
you are brought up in your family life effect the life you have?