Working-class families struggled financially. Many found it difficult to afford basic things like food, clothes and heating. Most families were patriarchal (man led the family), husband went to work, wife stayed in and did house work. Mr and Mrs Lyons typical family, Mrs Johnstone fills both roles. Mrs Lyons represents a Conservative mother who is unable to deal with the few challenges she faces:

Mrs Johnstone refers to the glamour and beauty of her younger years, when she was like Marilyn Monroe and her husband would dance with her She is dissatisfied with what she has, complaining about the loneliness of her large house and resorting to deceit to achieve her desires Britians traditional industries were in the decline because they were insufficient in keeping up with forgein competition and weren't economically viable anymore, Margaret Thatcher closed them down. Russell criticises patriarchal attitudes to mental health through Mrs Lyons’s mental deterioration:The narrator acts in the roles of minor characters within society and delivers negative judgements of Mrs Johnstone’s family: “Goodbye to the riff-raff/The trash and the trouble” She insists on sheltering Eddie from the “rough boys”, isolating him from the working-class families to protect him from their negative influence

Russell criticises the female ideal of youthful women, depicting Mrs Johnstone mourning her youth aged only twenty-five Blood Brothers started life as a play touring UK schools written by Willy Russell. Russell later adapted the play with music he had written. Willy Russell’s other plays include Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine. Young people often imitated characters from films and television. In the play, children pretend to be cowboys, Indians and gangsters.The children of the town sing songs about Mrs Lyons, calling her “the mad woman”, reflecting gender stigma associated with mental health Russell wrote his play just after an economic crisis in 1978 known as the Winter of Discontent, a period of time which led to increased crime and drug use