 Let's consider the character of Mrs. Lyons in Blood Brothers. Now, one thing to bear in mind is that initially she is a little bit of a sympathetic figure to us as viewers, okay, when we're watching this play, because she has been struggling, she was quite lonely, she really wants to have a child, but she's unable to conceive one. Therefore, we kind of sense her, you know, we feel some sympathy towards her. We see her initially as a sympathetic figure, and of course also initially when she kind of promises Mrs. Johnstone that, you know, Edward can also have some kind of connection with her, we see this as a really nice bargain. However, we quickly realize that she's actually quite cunning, she's a little bit harsh, quite callous, especially towards Mrs. Johnstone who she looks down on. She also manipulates her using her superstition against her and ultimately creates a massive distance between Mrs. Johnstone and her son Edward and drives a wedge between the two characters. Okay, so we end up not really liking Mrs. Lyons at all. She's a very deceitful character. So as you can see, there's different aspects of her personality that I've put behind me here, and these are the quotations you can use in terms of pinpointing different aspects of Mrs. Lyons' character. As I've mentioned, she's actually quite a cunning character. Don't forget actually that Mrs. Johnstone is not the only person she deceives. So she deceives Mrs. Johnstone with a promise that, you know, Mrs. Johnstone can have a bit of a relationship with Edward, okay? But she also deceives her husband. She lies to him about the child that they have, okay? So the husband is thinking he's raising a son that actually isn't his. And of course, she also deceives Edward her own son by making him believe that she's his mom. Okay, she's quite a cunning, deceptive character. Now in terms of the quotes relating to how cunning she is, firstly, we can see here she realizes that she can manipulate Mrs. Johnstone easily using her superstition against her because she tells Mrs. Johnstone, we must make this a binding agreement, okay? She kind of forces Mrs. Johnstone to put her hand in the Bible to promise that Edward now really belongs to Mrs. Lyons, okay? Obviously showing that she's quite cunning. And also when she then states, you sold your baby to Mrs. Johnstone, once more we can see here that she's very manipulative, especially towards Mrs. Johnstone. The other element is that Mrs. Lyons is quite dishonest and deceitful. And here, and especially when she's telling Mr. Lyons why they should fire Mrs. Johnstone and then ultimately why they should move, she states, since the baby arrived, she ignores most of her work, right? So this is when she was basically finding reason to fire Mrs. Johnstone because she really didn't like the fact that Mrs. Johnstone was fussing so much over Edward, okay? She didn't like that connection. The other aspect of her character is, as I've mentioned, she's a very manipulative woman, okay? She's very manipulative and actually it's her manipulative personality that makes us lose respect for her, but also we kind of don't really like her, especially as the play draws to her clothes. And firstly, the stage direction is laughing. So of course she's laughing at Mrs. Johnstone when she realises that she is superstitious. And she says, oh, you mean you're superstitious? So again here, she's laughing and looking down on Mrs. Johnstone, but then she realises because Mrs. Johnstone is superstitious, she's actually very easy to manipulate, which she does, okay? So she manipulates her superstition. And also she then tells Mrs. Johnstone to convince her to never tell Mickey that he is related to Edward. She tells her, they say that if either twin learns that he was once a pair, they shall both immediately die. And of course this does foreshadow the fact that both Mickey and Edward end up dying once they learn that they are a pair, okay? That they are twins. The other aspect of Mrs. Lyon's character is, again, this is what made us quite sympathetic towards her at first. This is what made her a sympathetic figure towards us at the beginning of the play. She is childless, okay? And she's been struggling to have a child. She tells Mrs. Johnstone, we've been trying for such a long time now. So we feel really sad for her, okay? This is a problem that a lot of couples face. So this is a really, really painful problem that some couples face if they can't conceive and have their own biological children. Also she states, I've dreamed of all the places I would take him, when she's thinking about how she would love to have a child and all the places that she would take her child. The other aspect of Mrs. Lyon's, which again illustrates the class divisions and how classist England can be. And of course it illustrates her classist view of Mrs. Johnstone as a middle-class woman is, we do know that she's quite wealthy and classist. And she firstly tries to pay out Mrs. Johnstone from not seeing her son ever again. She tells her, I'm talking about thousands if you want it, okay? So she uses her wealth as a tool against Mrs. Johnstone. Also she tells her husband, we need to move away because I don't want Edward mixing with boys like that. Again, here we can see that she's very classist. She looks down and working class people. She doesn't want her son Edward to mix with Mickey or any of the working class children where they live and then they end up moving away. The final aspect of her character is she is also very paranoid. Of course somebody who's hiding so many lies and so many dishonest things does of course end up being very paranoid. And this is shown in the quote, wherever I go, you'll be just behind me, okay? So here she's talking to Mrs. Johnstone and she's irritated. How are you here? We've moved away and you're still here, okay? Wherever I go, you'll be just behind me. So she's very paranoid that this secret, this terrible secret that Edward has actually been taken away by her from his main family and he's actually not her son at all. She's constantly paranoid that this secret will come out and she doesn't like the fact that Mrs. Johnstone and her family keeps on popping up wherever she goes. Okay, this makes her paranoid. So just remember in terms of her characteristics, Mrs. Lyons characteristics, she's quite cunning. She's quite deceitful. She is very manipulative. She's a childless woman who's wealthy and classist and she's also quite a paranoid woman. So thanks so much for listening.