24 - London Road, National Theatre

I don't have a lot of time to write a review of this performance so here's a rushed one!

I was really lucky to get a last minute return ticket for this as it seems to be sold out forever and no wonder. It's so refreshing to see something unlike anything I've seen before. London Road is a musical but one presented entirely by a chorus without any specific main characters. The lyrics and all the lines are spoken in that very specific way of talking that a next door neighbour uses when you point a local news camera at them.

It's clever, funny and surprisingly for a production about prostitutes murdered in Ipswich, uplifting. That's because it's not really about the prostitutes who only feature briefly or the murderer Steve Wright who we don't see at all. It's about a very English community bonding over a tragedy, discovering pride they didn't know they had for their area until people on the news started calling it a red light district.

The songs feature catchy refrains including 'Everyone is very very nervous and very uncertain of everything, basically' or 'I've got 17 hanging baskets in this back garden believe it or not' or 'You automatically think 'it could be him' yeah, I'm just gonna, like, cry.' They are by turns hilarious and unsettling.

The characters that emerge are not stereotypes, but they are as recognisable as if they were. They are the bloke next door who dropped your post round, or that woman who Gordon Brown called a bigot on TV. The audience warms to them because they are so clearly people they know, even though we're not told any of their back story or even their names (until a few of them, right at the end when they are announced as the winners of a gardening competition.)

I thought the production would show an overly optimistic view of a community banding together, but it didn't. Some of the community were pleased that the murders had at least driven the prostitutes from the end of their road. Some of them enjoyed seeing their house on TV and followed the trial as if it were a soap opera. As their road is shut off by police, most quickly begin to feel more inconvenienced than shocked or depressed. The whole play is very real, and offers a snapshot into human existence. I love it.

Here's an interview with the playwright: