Mickey could never have been an Eddie - Blood Brothers in Brighton

Bill Kenwright’s award-winning production of the international smash hit musical returns to the stage for a tour including Theatre Royal Brighton from Tuesday to Saturday, October 3-7, the captivating tale of twins who, separated at birth, grow up on opposite sides of the tracks, only to meet again with tragic consequences.

For Sean, the show – and Mickey specifically – has been a massive part of his life for decades now: “I have been doing this since before I was born!” he laughs. “My first connection with the show was back in 1999 when I got to the understudy on the tour and then about two or three years after that, in about 2002, I got bumped up to Mickey.” And for Sean, it was always going to be Mickey, not Eddie. He could never have been an Eddie, he says: “It the old nature versus nurture thing, isn't it, but I don't think I've got an Eddy in me. When I was very young back in the 90s I was absolutely obsessed with the part. I had seen it in the West End and it was a real light bulb moment. I just thought that's my part. I just thought that's what I want to do but I never dreamed that I would get to do it. It was a big West End show and I was just a drama student and it was just like this massive chasm that I would never cross but I did really become obsessed with it. People would say what is your dream role and for me it was always Mickey. In fact I've got some drunken video footage of me as a student re-enacting that last scene. But that's staying under lock and key! I'm not ready to show that yet! In the 1990s there was a big production of Blood Brothers at the English Speaking Theatre in Hamburg and I got to audition for Mickey. I thought that this is close as I was going to get. I didn't think I'd get the big Bill Kenwright version and I was just buzzing with it. I went to audition and the guy said to me ‘You know, you're more Eddie than Mickey’ and I had to read for Eddie and I just couldn't do it. I didn't get it and I just thought well I'm not good enough to be Eddie and nobody wants me as Mickey and I just thought it was never going to happen. At first I had seen the posters for Blood Brothers and I thought it looked rubbish but somebody said to me that I should go and see it because it was a real part for me. I reluctantly went along because as an actor I think you're always interested in how other people see you and what they think is right for you, and as soon as Mickey ran on the stage I thought that that's it, I've just got to do this. He's got the same energy levels as I had as a kid, that teenage stuff, that rebelliousness. I was a tear-away forever bunking off and hanging out in the fields with my mates. I was also expelled from school when I was 16 or 17. I was in the sixth form and I was always bunking off because I'd got involved in the local youth theatre and I was hanging out there. I didn't focus in lessons and I was cocky and in the end they just said ‘OK, you can go now’ and I ended up on the dole as a 17-year-old and there is a scene in Blood Brothers where Mickey in his donkey jacket joins the dole queue in the 1980s with all these unemployed men and I can remember that was exactly me.”​​​​​

​