Does anyone know exactly what this is about?? I saw something about it being a musical. Could anyone elaborate?
shareMusicals are movies where the plot is moved along or a character's emotions are portrayed through singing (often, but not always, accompanied by dancing). Though less common today, they were extremely popular during the fifties and sixties.
shareThis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich_serial_murders
A musical seems a little poor taste.
The director of the movie was also director of the musical.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Road_(musical)
The synopsis should tell you what it's about. First performed at London's Royal National Theatre, while it IS a musical it is not a musical in the old-fashioned sense - no dancing even. It's not even a musical in the sense of Kander and Ebb or Sondheim's musicals, not in the sense of Sweeney Todd or Into the Woods.
The prostitutes who were killed tended to work on London Road in Ipswich, and their killer also lived on London Road. The writer interviewed the other residents of the street shortly after the murders and then again about a year later. The text of the musical is entirely taken from their own words in those interviews and so doesn't rhyme in the way you'd expect words of a song to rhyme. Anyone who has seen the animated shorts called "Creature Comforts" will understand how the text is approached though without the unconscious humour involved.
The musical isn't about the murders themselves. When the musical starts, the murders (and I think the trial) are over. This is entirely about how those living on the street pick up their lives and move on. I went to the National Theatre and saw London Road, and thought it one of the best things I had ever seen at the theatre. The characters are very ordinary people living ordinary lives in a rather extraordinary situation. It will be interesting to see if it translates to the screen.
So, from your last paragraph, this is about how the residents of London Road, IPSWICH, find drugs, prostitution, & murder, so very strange.... and unusual... & then have to "pick up their lives & move on"... really? I've known a few people who were unfortunate enough, to spend (VERY) brief periods of time living there, I can assure you... "business as usual". My God, Tom Hardy, has associated himself, with this? REALLY? This, as a "musical", has people in fits of hysterics... What will they open with, "workin' 9 'till 5"? "runaway"? My god... Ippy, do yourselves a favour, stay an anonymous slum, as you are.
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It's a film of the British National Theatre's controversial musical about a real-life serial killer of prostitutes. http://derekwinnert.com/london-road-2015-olivia-colman-kate-fleetwood-tom-hardy-movie-review/
shareI saw the play at the National Theatre in London in August 2012. I eagerly anticipate the movie.
Other posts are correct in that it is not a typical musical. The play came from a collaboration between a musical theater composer and a playwright who was experimenting with a kind of "verbatim" theater. In this avant garde style of drama the actors recite the unaltered words of real life interviews, and also do their best to pronounce them with the exact cadence and accent of the interview to the point that they are listening to the interviews and reciting what they hear on stage as they perform.
"London Road" is about the people who live on a small road in Ipswich where 5 local prostitutes are murdered. The subject is not the murders or their victims, but how the people of the community react to the murders, and the publicity around them, and then try to rebuild their lives/sweep the whole prostitute thing under the carpet. It's a play in which the people who are traditionally the Chorus become the stars. We never meet the serial killer or the victims or their families. The play is built from interviews with local people, mall rat kids, media people, and nosey neighbors. Depending on your point of view, it's about regular people overcoming a terrible tragedy, or ignoring the social ills right under their noses that created the tragedy in the first place. The play is a kind of political litmus test. The viewer's reaction, I've found, reveals a lot about their politics.
The verbatim style, when set to music, is fascinating. Every vocal tick, every "um" and "sort of" is kept in, and treated rhythmically, which makes for a delightfully textured score. The style moves from traditionally melodic, to John Cage-esque.
To folks who have posted their scandalization at a musical about serial murders, maybe save your judgy-ness for such musicals as "Silence!" (the unofficial musical version of Silence of the Lambs, which I also enjoyed).
This musical doesn't sensationalize murder or prostitution. Instead it talks about the interplay of media sensationalism and narrow-minded middle class values, and the ways in which we may treat those living closest to us as "other." Is there such a thing as community anymore? If so, what does it mean? Who belongs and who is ostracized? Can a bunch of hanging flower baskets make people forget about the 5 prostitutes who were brutally murdered just a few houses away? Apparently, they can. But is that a good thing or a bad thing?
See the movie.
Great comment!
share"exact cadence and accent of the interview"
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