In late 2006 the everyday life of the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five women.
The residents of London Road had struggled for years with the soliciting and kerb-crawling that they frequently encountered. As Steve Wright, the occupant of No. 79, was arrested, charged and then convicted of the murders, the immediate community grappled with the media frenzy and what it meant to be at the epicentre of this tragedy.
London Road is a verbatim-theatre musical based on those events, with book and lyrics by Alecky Blythe, who recorded extensive interviews with the people of Ipswich, and music by Adam Cork, whose score is a response to the melodic and rhythmic speech patterns captured on those recordings.
The musical was developed by the National Theatre, London, and first performed there in the Cottesloe auditorium in April 2011. It won the 2011 Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical.
London Road is an experimental and challenging work which reveals the ways in which even the darkest experiences can engender a greater sense of our mutual dependence.
‘This miraculously innovative show finds a new way of representing reality [and] opens up rich possibilities for musical theatre’
— Guardian
‘An astonishing document about a beleaguered yet resilient community… a startling, magically original success’
— Evening Standard
‘The most genuinely interesting and innovative new musical I’ve seen for ages’
— WhatsOnStage
Best Musical, Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards
