EXCITED teenager leaving the Grand Opera House at the end of Blood Brothers: “I was crying, laughing and screaming all at the same time.”

Willy Russell’s musical tale of brothers separated at birth and finally brought back together by death has that effect on people.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the show is still playing in London’s West End and never seems to stop touring.

This particular production is superb, not least thanks to Niki Evans’ emotional tour de force at Mrs Johnstone, the Liverpool mother who gives one of her twins away to a rich woman unable to have children of her own.

By the time we get to Mrs Johnstone’s final lament, Tell Me It’s Not True, there isn’t a dry eye in the house. No matter how many times you see it – and many theatregoers thrive on seeing it time and time again – it still packs a mighty emotional wallop.

The show may have been on the road a long time, but this production shows no signs of being ragged round the edges.

Is Evans (an X Factor finalist – but don’t hold that against her) the best-ever Mrs Johnstone? You’d need to line all of them up and make them sing to find out, but she must be up there very near the top of the list.

Sean Jones, as Mickey, and Paul Davies, as Eddie, are superb as their younger, excitable, schoolboy selves before the drama kicks in, while Craig Price makes a sinister Narrator, forever lurking in the shadows with warnings of bad things to come.

• Until Saturday. Tickets 0844-847-2322 and online grandoperahouseyork.org.uk