Blood Brothers is a musical with book, lyrics, and music by Willy Russell. The story is a contemporary nature versus nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins Mickey and Eddie who were separated at birth. The twins' different backgrounds take them to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming a councillor and the other unemployed and in prison. They both fall in love with the same girl, causing a tear in their friendship and leading to the tragic death of both brothers. Andrew Lamb wrote that the musical is based loosely on the 1844 novella The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas, père, but in a 2012 interview with the Daily Telegraph, Russell denied the influence of Dumas's work, saying that his work was based on a one-act play that he read as a child "about two babies switched at birth ... it became the seed for Blood Brothers."