Thursday June 11, 2015, The Gazette 3 Film: London Road How a town rose again after murder Having stormed the National Theatre, verbatim musical London Road is coming to the big screen, finds Alex Bellotti

or those involved in its assume a character she originally original run at the played in the show. National Theatre, the “It was very lovely to be doing Fcoverage surrounding it with her,” Burt says, explaining the film adaptation of that her other daughter, Eva, also London Road must be a breath of featured as director Rufus Norris fresh air. encouraged family of the cast to Back in 2011, when the show get involved. premiered, there was a far greater What was it like also sharing a amount of scepticism – to put it scene with Tom Hardy? “He was lightly – about the prospect of a fantastic. For a singer to be able verbatim-style musical about the to do this stuff is hard and he’d Ipswich serial murders. say he wasn’t a singer, but my god Fortunately, its accumulation he is.” of five star reviews quickly put an Of course the heart of the story end to any accusations of cashing is in the community it depicts, in on a tragedy. and Burt believes the film holds “We entered into rehearsals up a mirror to how we would react with very much the press deciding in our own lives. “The whole town that this was going to be a musical didn’t know what to do and they about murders and that it was were thrust into the limelight bad taste, but they didn’t know in the most horrific scenario. anything about it at the time,” I suspect it might throw up an says Highgate actress Clare Burt, awful lot of questions were you or who has starred in both the show I thrust into the same situation. and film. “So when it became “What I know that they successful it was thrilling – we were all united in feeling was were just glad to get through it happiness that they had become without being heckled.” a community again. In fact all of Written by Hackney playwright „ Above: A scene from London Road. Inset: Adam Cork and the residents gave permission for Alecky Blythe and scored by Alecky Blythe (Picture: Idil Sukan) their interviews to be used and composer Adam Cork, the film they’ve all seen a screening of it features all the cast and team of conducted over two and a half workshop. The composer admits lends itself more to the screen and loved it.” the original show, plus additional years. he was initially “flummoxed” than to the stage for a starting Blythe concurs: “On paper it’s a actors including Olivia Colman, “I think they wanted to talk to by the prospect of adapting point. In some songs – Ten Weeks difficult sell, but as with the show Tom Hardy and Anita Dobson. me because my line of questioning normal speech into melody, but for example – I’ve used the the film’s not about the murders, In cinemas from tomorrow, the was different to other press they’d after further discussion realised language of TV documentary not about the women; it doesn’t story focuses on the residents been having,” she explains. “I they had found something and pathetique-style piano sensationalise Steve Wright in of London Road – the street wasn’t asking them about the “experimental in its ambition, but accompaniment, which was totally any way. The focus is still very which housed Steve Wright, who private life of the (murdered) with the potential to really land different from the stage show, much on the community and how killed five Ipswich prostitutes girls or Steve Wright, I was asking with a theatre audience”. which was more demonstrative.” they came together and healed in late 2006. As national media them, ‘What’s it like for you to How will it land with film Alongside a reworked script and themselves over the next couple descends upon the area, Wright’s have lived through this?’ or, ‘What audiences though? reworked music, the nature of of years. neighbours are left to struggle are you now doing about it?’ “I find the film more emotional,” cinema meant that cast members “The show and plot of the film with the aftermath while trying London Road’s originality says Blythe, and Cork agrees. “The couldn’t play multiple characters is adding to that glue, if you like, to rebuild their shell-shocked comes from applying Blythe’s screen is a way into storytelling as they did on stage, so more that binds them in terms of that community. trademark verbatim style – which that we’re all much more used to actors were required. shared experience.” Blythe – whose last show Little sees actors reciting the speech of than the stage, because we’ve been For Burt – who in the film plays Revolution debuted at the Almeida real interviewees, down to the last watching telly all our lives here in a member of a neighbourhood „ London Road is on general release Theatre last year – created the stutter – to a musical context. 2015,” he says. committee – this led to a curious tomorrow (June 12). Visit script by whittling down over 100 Her collaboration with Cork “I suppose the language of twist of fate as her daughter, londonroadfilm.co.uk. For our hours of interviews with residents came during a National Theatre documentary is something that Eloise Laurence, was cast to review, turn to page six.

„ Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh in Waiting for A poignant take on a post-apocalytic world Godot. Picture: Alastair Muir WAITING FOR GODOT striking devastation isn’t quite in playing the part of dominant BARBICAN tune with the production itself, Pozzo, while Luke Mullins’ ####$ which tends towards a wryly spectral Lucky is both broken laconic form of fatalism. slave – wheezing bodily, surreal Central pair Hugo Weaving forced dance steps, resting in The Sydney Theatre Company and Richard Roxburgh’s easy a gravity-defying lean – and team had an appropriately chemistry makes the enduring powerful force. His monologue, Beckettian experience while relationship convincing, but its delivered with bravura precision, mounting this new production: warmth favours the Laurel and is memorably chilling. the first few weeks of rehearsal Hardy vaudevillian clowning, not Nick Schlieper’s intelligent were spent waiting for a director the existential futility beneath lightning design bathes the who never appeared. Company their hijinks. Weaving’s elegant Barbican stage in remorselessly director Andrew Upton eventually Vladimir and Roxburgh’s placid bright steel and then plunges us took over from absent Tamás Estragon also function more as an into shadowy blue when night Ascher, working within the appealing bromantic unit, rather falls. Upton’s studied production set Ascher had developed with than distinct and occasionally as a whole doesn’t quite plumb designer Zsolt Khell. unhealthy co-dependents. the same depths, but there are That set places the action of Thankfully, the supporting moments honouring the play’s Beckett’s 1953 absurdist classic duo adds a darker dimension strange horror and desperate in the disused theatre of a post- with their otherworldly loneliness, and it offers a robust apocalyptic wasteland, populated physicality. Philip Quast, puffing reminder of the emotional bonds with gravestone-esque blasted out his expansive midsection and comic diversion humanity tree stumps and the eerily and booming commands, craves to fill the void. monumental lone tree. Khell’s overcompensates frantically Marianka Swain