This isn't the first time playwright Alecky Blythe has found inspiration in the lives of prostitutes. In her earlier The Girlfriend Experience, using a technique of interviewing her subjects, then asking her actors to reproduce their words accurately in performance, she allowed us to eavesdrop on their everyday existence.
This time she has adapted the procedure, joining forces with composer and lyricist Adam Cork to dramatise the consequences for the small country town of Ipswich (in Suffolk) when, in December 2006, the naked bodies of five working girls were found in quick succession.
The result is moving, funny, heart-warming, chilling – and completely original. Forced into the limelight, the locals decided to organise a "London Road in Bloom" competition, festooning the street (where, for a short time before his arrest, the serial killer lived) with hanging baskets in a colourful, regenerative attempt to rebuild their shaken community.
After the horrific events which had occurred virtually on their doorstep, and the continuing media scrum as their former neighbour (who remains an unseen presence) is arrested, charged, tried, and found guilty, it proves a lifeaffirming event, gorgeously captured by designer Katrina Lindsay.
Fluently directed by Rufus Norris (who at one point ropes the residents within the confines of criss-crossed police tape as they try to go about their daily lives) this is very much an ensemble piece. In addition to the main protagonists (including the leading lights of the Neighbourhood Watch), the eleven-strong cast brings over fifty other characters to sometimes brief, often telling, life. Verbatim theatre becomes verbatim musical as their words, complete with hesitations and repetition, are skilfully blended into songs and refrains (sung sometimes solo, sometimes in chorus) in this unique theatrical experiment which not only pays off in dramatic terms but also recognises the bleak prospects facing the remaining sex workers who, thanks to the publicity and enhanced police presence – and much to the relief of the residents – were finally cleared off their street.
Cottesloe
This time she has adapted the procedure, joining forces with composer and lyricist Adam Cork to dramatise the consequences for the small country town of Ipswich (in Suffolk) when, in December 2006, the naked bodies of five working girls were found in quick succession.
The result is moving, funny, heart-warming, chilling – and completely original. Forced into the limelight, the locals decided to organise a "London Road in Bloom" competition, festooning the street (where, for a short time before his arrest, the serial killer lived) with hanging baskets in a colourful, regenerative attempt to rebuild their shaken community.
After the horrific events which had occurred virtually on their doorstep, and the continuing media scrum as their former neighbour (who remains an unseen presence) is arrested, charged, tried, and found guilty, it proves a lifeaffirming event, gorgeously captured by designer Katrina Lindsay.
Fluently directed by Rufus Norris (who at one point ropes the residents within the confines of criss-crossed police tape as they try to go about their daily lives) this is very much an ensemble piece. In addition to the main protagonists (including the leading lights of the Neighbourhood Watch), the eleven-strong cast brings over fifty other characters to sometimes brief, often telling, life. Verbatim theatre becomes verbatim musical as their words, complete with hesitations and repetition, are skilfully blended into songs and refrains (sung sometimes solo, sometimes in chorus) in this unique theatrical experiment which not only pays off in dramatic terms but also recognises the bleak prospects facing the remaining sex workers who, thanks to the publicity and enhanced police presence – and much to the relief of the residents – were finally cleared off their street.
Cottesloe
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