 |
| Photo: Graham Burke |
When it opened at
London’s National Theatre in 2011, London Road: A Musical was met with
rapturous reviews, critical acclaim and a sold-out run. So quite what happened
in transition to Bristol’s Old Vic Theatre I’m not sure.
Directed by Nicholas
Bone, London Road is a brave attempt to combine verbatim theatre with musical
theatre to retell the true story of a series of brutal murders using the speech
and inflections of those who were there.
Verbatim theatre uses exactly the same words as were spoken by a person as part of
the performance – so in this case, Alecky Blythe interviewed the real-life
residents of Ipswich’s London Road to gain their perspectives of the notorious
killings of five local sex workers in 2006. Complete with repetitions, fillers,
malapropisms and unfinished sentences, those interviews are repeated here on
the stage by actors. And following the natural rhythm of the Ipswich accent,
composer Adam Cork has set this to music, performed by a live band.
It just doesn’t work.
The actual narrative of London Road and the stories of those affected by the
murders becomes secondary to the self-conscious and all-consuming performance
style of tedious repetition and overly intrusive live music. With one or two
lines repeated over and over during a three or four minute song, it takes a
very long time for the narrative to move forwards, and essentially very little
happens in what should have been a fascinating story.
The effects on
neighbours of living next door to serial killer should be gripping. The
paranoia, the suspicion, the change of habits, the curtain twitching, the press
intrusion, the propulsion onto the nation’s TV screens… But this production of
London Road allows none of this.
With a cast of 12
actors playing 66 characters, there is no empathy or development for any character,
meaning there’s no room for the audience to build a connection of
identification with any one person. So it is impossible to single out any one
actor for their performance. Couple this with the patronising portrayal of
these characters – who, let’s not forget, are real people. The murders happened
in 2006, meaning this is recent history. So why the inhabitants of London Road
are dressed like stereotyped characters from a 1970s sitcom set in a community
centre I do not know. Why are they dressed in socks and Birkenstocks? Why are
the men wearing zip-up cardigans? Why does their furniture look like it was
found on a skip in the 1970s? This is patronising and it is not realistic.
Unfortunately London
Road: A Musical does not sit comfortably. What could have been a fascinating
and imaginative narrative, putting a new spin on existing genres, ended up as a
frustrating and tedious performance that fell short of the mark.
I feel you have completely mis-interpreted Bristol Old Vic's production. Did you see the original?
ReplyDelete