Antony Costa

Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, now in its 20th (non-contiguous) year in the West End, has announced that Antony Costa, a former member of the chart-topping boy band Blue, will join the cast beginning on 10 April.

Costa will play Mickey, one of the twins of the title who are separated at birth but meet again and become best friends as they grow up. Costa was also in the BBC series Grange Hill and Chalk. Last November, he was featured in the reality TV series, I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

He joins a cast that includes Maureen Nolan (one of the famed Nolan Sisters, with whom she started singing at the age of 9) as Mrs. Johnson, Mark Hutchinson as separated twin Eddie, Philip Stewart as the Narrator, Vivienne Carlyle as Mrs. Lyons, Sophia Thierens as Linda and Stephen Pallister as Mr. Lyons. The cast also features Simon Turner, Caroline Hartley, Alex Harland, Suzanne Carley and Michael Everest.

Blood Brothers was originally produced in the West End in a different staging at the Lyric Theatre in 1985, and was revived by producer/co-director Bill Kenwright for a national tour in 1987, bringing it back to the West End’s Albery Theatre in 1998 and subsequently transferring it to the Phoenix four years later, where it has run ever since.