The dilemma faced by a single mother who can’t afford to raise both of her twin boys is at the centre of Blood Brothers.

And it’s not only audiences who can’t stay away from Willy Russell’s musical but its stars, too.

Marti Pellow and Maureen Nolan, are back in the roles of the narrator and Mrs Johnstone at Tunbridge Wells’ Assembly Hall Theatre, almost three years after the show was last in Kent.

Ex-Wet Wet Wet frontman Marti said: “It’s a very earthy piece. It’s honest, and for me there are a lot of things I can relate to.”

Marti, who recently portrayed Che in Evita, added: “When you come from a working class background and see how hard it is for people to make ends meet, then the journey Blood Brothers takes you on I can relate to.

“Coming from Clydebank, at the tail-end of the 1980s when Thatcherism was at its most potent, a large majority of the shipyards were closing down and the miners’ strikes were happening. It was a very provocative time.

“So when I do Blood Brothers, I feel all that internally.”

Similarly, Maureen, who found fame in the Nolan Sisters back in the 1980s, said she empathised with the mother, Mrs Johnstone.

“We grew up in Dublin and my mother had eight children with no money,” she said.

“The way Blood Brothers is written means every mother thinks, ‘Oh God, what else would you do?’ Some of her children were about to be taken off her anyway because social services were worried she couldn’t manage. When she was expecting twins and a woman says, ‘Give one to me and you can see him every day,’ I don’t know what I would do.

“Any mother in the audience who comes up to me says they are heartbroken for her. I love Mrs Johnstone.”

Blood Brothers runs from Monday, January 26, until Saturday, January 31. Tickets cost from £20.50. Visit www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk or call 01892 530613.