In the dramatical musical: blood brothers, Russell constructs Edward to be an unlikeable character through his blissful ignorance of his own brother’s and mother’s struggles. Through Edward’s benightedness, the playwright manages to present the long lasting struggles of the working class and disprove the Thatcherite theory of being able to succeed if you work hard enough.

Towards the beginning of the musical, Edward and Mickey first meet and due to the dramatic irony of the audience knowing that they are twins, we originally expect them to act similarly or at the very least treat eachother as equals. The audience is proved wrong when Edward makes the judicious comment “don’t you know what a dictionary is?”. Although Edward doesn’t yet understand the implications of this comment, he still shamed Mickey for not having the same resources as him which shows how the middle class look down on the working class. Additionally, this statement shows us how coddled Edward is because he expects everyone to have the same luxuries that he does. The fact that Edward is so oblivious to his wealth at a time of mass unemployment is aggravating to the audience as it shows the extreme class divide and how some get to live comfortable lives while others are stuck in a cycle of poverty. Russell may have chosen to use the word “dictionary” as it symbolises having an abundance of something through the hundreds of definitions it holds. This could denote an abundance of wealth or even knowledge, as this play is set before the human rights act was passed meaning nobody had the right to be educated and meant that state schools were heavily underfunded. The fact that state schools were underfunded meant that if your state school was not a grammar school, or you didn’t live in a thriving city like London you were almost guaranteed to be stuck in a cycle of social immobility. This portrays Edward as an unlikeable character through his lack of social awareness and his inability to communicate with someone of a lower class than him without being condescending or judgemental. In addition the use of the pronoun “you” emphasises the shame and embarrassment that Mickey must have felt in that moment. This is because it puts him under pressure to put on a facade to seem ‘worthy’ of being Edward’s friend which is seen when he replies “of course i do, its a thingy init”. This creates sympathy for Mickey because he’s only 7 yet aware that he must be embarrassed about his background to be accepted within society, and as a result dislike for Edward due to his nescience. Maybe Russell’s intentions were to show to criticise the ignorance of the middle class and the government to the working class and chronically unemployed.

When Mickey and Edward are in school, Edward is portrayed on the surface as extremely intelligent when a teacher says to him “talk of oxbridge”. It is clear that this has nothing to do with Edward’s intelligence and everything to do with the fact that he can afford to go to an independent school. This means that unlike Mickey he will receive a lot more opportunities and the chance to start a successful career just because his school is more favourable, turning life into a pay to win game. The diction “talk” suggests that everyone is aware that the middle class have a societal advantage, even the middle class themselves. This is because the teacher is encouraging Edward to consider oxbridge even when he has not displayed any form of academic excellence. This makes Edward hard to like as every opportunity is being handed to him on a silver platter, and unlike other people he does not even have to try hard to be able to do amazing things such as attend oxbridge. Furthermore, the word “oxbridge” is interesting because it denotes a sense of superiority no matter which time period you’re in. Although today, going to oxbridge makes you seem superior to others due to your intellect, at a time such as this intellegence was considered after financial background. The fact that Edward fails to show the audience why he actually deserves to go to Oxford or Cambridge creates an atmosphere of frustration as it could be argued that since Mickey and Edward are twins they are more genetically similar than most other siblings and possibly even genetically identical. If this is the case, then Mickey and Edward should have the same IQ and thus the same opportunities. As we know, this isn’t true which makes us feel coldly towards Edward as we understand the feeling of not being able to have the same things that other people do. It’s possible that Russell wanted to criticise the educational divide that was happening in England at the time and also promote the idea of all children having equal opportunities.

Towards the end of the play, when Mickey and Edward fall out as adults, we finally see Mickey stand up to Edward when he tells him “I dont wear a hat that I can tilt at the world”. This might be a symbolism of the working class standing up to their societal oppressors: the middle class. Mickey finally snaps at Edward as he’s frustrated about how he is always so oblivious to what he’s going through and doesn’t understand that simply giving him a bit of cash won’t fix all his problems. Despite this, Mickey hasn’t got the credibility nor societal respect to be able to do something about the way that he and other people live, which garners sympathy for him from readers and audiences. The phrase “ I don’t wear” articulates the idea that Mickey doesn’t have the resources to do anything about how he lives which contributes to social immobility. This suggests that he isn’t adorned with the privileges, opportunities and luxuries that Edward has showing the contrasting lives that two identical twins live. This makes viewers dislike Edward not necessarily because of his character but out of envy on Mickey’s behalf. This is because everybody except Mickey and Edward knows that it very well could have been Mickey who went to an independent school and a Russell group university. Russell may have done this to show how success usually happens by chance, although it is not impossible to succeed even when you come from an impoverished background, it is a lot harder to do so due to upbringing, discrimination and social stigma. This disproves Thatcher’s theory of always being able to succeed solely from hard work. Moreover, the word “world” is intriguing as it may be symbolic of the conservative government. It’s common that leftist parties usually focus on public services while rightist parties focus on businesses and corporations. This means that the group of people that shape the lives of british citizens had very little concern for the wellbeing of working class ones. This might have made the audience at the time reconsider their political views. They do this because Russell has already established a dislike for Edward in the audience, and they may not want to support the people that help the rich get richer and persistently neglect the poor. Russell may have done this to urge people to support the working class and unemployed at the time through Edward’s constant unawareness of issues that everyday working class people experienced. Maybe the playwright’s intention was to promote advocacy for the working class by making Mickey’s literary foil a relatively unlikeable person.

After the evaluation and consideration of different pieces of evidence throughout the play, it can be concluded that Edward has been constructed to be generally disliked by audiences through his consistent nescience towards the working class and his usual demeanour of so called superiority.