London Road is in Ipswich and the residents had often complained to the police about the prostitutes soliciting in their street but nothing was done about it until five prostitutes were murdered in 2006. Suddenly the police and the media were everywhere and the residents’ lives were no longer their own. Under the stress of the constant and extremely intrusive surveillance the householders rallied round, supporting each other, and the street became much more of a community than it had ever been before.
Alecky Blythe interviewed the residents and recorded their reactions to the murder, the murderer, the trial and the aftermath over an 18-month period. The most telling remark was, perhaps, by a householder who wanted to shake the hands and thank the murderer for getting rid of the prostitutes.
Blythe is a verbatim documentary playwright and she expects the actors to mimic exactly what she has recorded: every accent, inflection, pause, every um, er, even every cough. The present play, highly original and only very occasionally patronising, adds an extra dimension in that the actors are now also expected to sing in a speech-like manner. Adam Corke’s tuneful music follows the cadences and rhythms of the original speech patterns and the choric work underlines the communal experience. The cast – 11 actors playing 63 roles – is immensely impressive. Rufus Norris’s clever and very watchable production uses police tape and baskets of flowers to potent symbolic effect.