Rebecca can’t wait to bring favourite role in Blood Brothers back to Derry

“I didn’t even know what I was auditioning for at the time,” she recalls.

“ I sang a couple of songs and they gave me the script to take home and my mother read it first and laughed out loud when I said I was to play the part of the mother because I was only 24 at the time.

“She said this is a woman who has had seven children you’ve no chance. But Willy said to the director make her look 20 years older and they worked really hard to get me through it.

“As you can imagine, it is really close to my heart as it opened so many doors for me.”

Since then Rebecca has returned to Mrs Johnstone eight times over the interceding 26 years.

And she says the play - in which as a mother she is convinced to give up one for of her seven children to a rich family -is as relevant today as it has ever been.

“People come up to me who say they saw it when they were still a child and now they are helping to bring up their grandchildren. It has stood the test of time.

“It’s like putting on an old pair of slippers. But it’s also really really nice to go back to it.

“There’s a lot of truth in the story. These things have happened where parents have to give up their children for one reason or another, particularly in Ireland. It’s so close to a lot of people’s hearts.

“For me, it’s not so much a musical as a play with music. It crosses over a barrier and appeals to people who maybe normally don’t like musicals.”

According to Rebecca Mrs Johnstone sits comfortably with the other iconic female roles Russell has created in Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine.

“I’ve known and worked with Willy for 36 years. He is such an extremely good writer, a brilliant man. A lot of my life story was Shirley Valentine so it was quite extraordinary to see that put up on the stage and I was sat next to him on the opening night. He observes people so well, He used to be a hairdresser and I think that is one of the reasons that he writes women so well, is from that and the stories he would hear in the hair salon.

“Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine are great examples of how he writes and that’s why women adore him.

“Funnily enough, Shirley Valentine is a part I have never played, probably because there is no singing and I would be known as a singer first and foremost.

“But you never know what might happen someday.

In Blood Brothers fraternal twins Mickey and Eddie, are separated at birth, one subsequently being raised in a wealthy family, the other in a poor family.

The different environments take the twins to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming a councillor, and the other unemployed and in prison.

Russell says that his work was based on a one-act play that he read as a child about two babies switched at birth and that became the seed for Blood Brothers.

“I’m really looking forward to coming back to Derry. Everybody loves this show but It’s different when you take it to places in England like Bath or Richmond because they just don’t get it in quite the same way that people in Derry or Belfast or Dublin do,” says Rebecca.

“Irish audiences just get it. I’m very proud to be a part of bringing it here.

“For a lot of people, it is their favourite musical and a lot of people have told me that so it’s wonderful to be a part of that.

“Mrs Johnson is such a lovely part to play because the audience cares for her so much.”

Blood Brothers is at the Millennium Forum from Tuesday March 3 to Saturday March7.