FROM laughing out loud to swallowing the tears back, this show took the audience through a rollercoaster of emotions in just a few hours.

The Willy Russell musical, which is celebrating its 28th anniversary, tells the story of twin brothers Mickey Johnstone and Edward Lyons who are separated at birth when their mother Mrs Johnstone is left with no choice but to give one of them away.

While Mickey stays living in the poor end of an estate in Liverpool, Edward is brought up by the wealthy Lyons family but that doesn’t stop the two boys meeting up and, unaware of their connection, declaring themselves ‘blood brothers’.

Maureen Nolan took the lead role as Mrs Johnstone, performing with pure passion, but the real star of the show was undoubtedly Sean Jones as Mickey.

From an excitable schoolboy obsessed with cowboys and indians to a grown man suffering from depression in prison, Jones pulled it all off perfectly.

While he had the audience laughing at his childish antics at the start, he was truly pulling at the heartstrings by the end.

Special mention should also go to Kelly-Anne Gower who played the brothers’ love interest Linda, Matthew Collyer as Edward and Sean Price who took the role of narrator eerily appearing throughout the show to remind the audience that the devil is coming and that this is not a story with a happy ending.

A performance worthy of its standing ovation.

Blood Brothers is showing at the Bristol Hippodrome until March 3.