How Effective Is the Prologue in Blood Brothers

A prologue is intended to set the scene for a story. It should give the reader or audience information on the plot and characters in the play and hopefully capture their interest and intrigue them.
    In opening the prologue of Blood Brothers with the line,‘Tell me it’s not true, say it’s just a story” the point it is made right away that it is going to be a sad story, with a disastrous ending. This shocks the audience but holds our attention at the outset whilst preparing us to experience some upset or disappointment as the plot unfolds. The narrator’s introduction of “the Johnstone twins”   and the appearance of Mrs Johnstone presents them as the main characters of the play.
    We are then drawn into a whirlwind of events in a short summary of their sad lives. We learn of their birth, unusual lives and premature violent death implied by “lie slain” and so are presented with what will surely be the main events of the play. The main themes are thus introduced and with them comes a challenge to the audience to think how unusual is the situation described where two twin boys have such different experiences of life, “one was kept and one given away?”,   grow up “never knowing” they are true brothers and only realise the truth when it is too late on “the day they died”. These issues of identity, relationships and destiny are raised for the audience to dwell on and ponder how the events will pan out. Although the audience feels at this early point that they know what is going to happen and that the fate of the brothers is sealed from the outset, they are anxious to meet these characters and understand if they can how such a tragedy occurred.
    Also the narrator is clever to raise a doubt as to the character of the mother who   is described as ‘cruel’ and having a ‘stone in place of her heart’. This is so at odds to the picture of a weeping Mrs Johnstone that the audience sees, and the acknowledgement that “a mother cried”.   This is effective in encouraging the...