Hi There,
On Wednesday afternoon I was lucky enough to go to a matinee preview at the National Theatre of the revival of LONDON ROAD.
This is a verbatim musical about the community response to the killing of 5 female sex workers in the London Road area of Ipswich in 2006-7 – ie both dialogue and song lyrics are verbatim dialogue taken by writer Alecky Blythe from interviews with local residents, sex workers, etc. Nothing is ‘written’ but the dialogue from the interviews is structured into a theatre musical.
I found the show inspiring. It worked as a show – it was involving and effective. I loved the way the show successfully challenges and upends so many conventions of dramatic storytelling. It made me think about dramatic writing, with a lot of lessons / crossovers for screenwriting.
FORM / GENRE – this combination – a verbatim musical – was a first for me (has it been done in any other show anywhere?). It worked brilliantly (more of which below) but made me think about using genre / form mash-ups to generate and create unique screen stories. Unexpected, challenging forms and genre combos can often bring stories to life in a way conventional narrative approaches may not.
So many of the ‘songs’ worked so brilliantly in presenting and dramatizing events of the story. But London Road is very far from being conventional musical theatre. There isn’t a hummable tune in the whole show – but the way music is used to underscore the story adds poignancy and poetry to the storytelling. The music heightened the pathos of the dialogue.
CHARACTERISATION – one of the norms of conventional dramatic storytelling that was not present in LONDON ROAD was characterisation. The 13-stong cast doubled up, playing a huge number of roles, even if they all also had one central / dominant role. Each of these ‘characters’ had subtly-defined quirks in the way they behaved and spoke – but none really had a conventional narrative arc. In the main they were observers of the bigger overall drama.
DIALOGUE – it’s odd and a little uncomfortable (!) that the dialogue I have enjoyed most in the theatre (very possibly in all dramatic writing) has been in the stage plays Tactical Questioning (2011) and London Road – both verbatim theatre shows in which none of the dialogue is conventionally ‘written.’ So much of the dialogue (chosen and edited from many hours of recorded interviews) felt, unsurprisingly, so real and human and well-observed. The nuances and inarticulacy of human speech, the characters’ inability to clearly express what they were wanting to say was so powerful in its reality and subtext. I loved the odd, oblique quality of the ‘dialogue’ – this sort of inarticulate dialogue invites you the audience into the story to imaginatively fill the gaps for yourself. There are powerful lessons here for writing dialogue. As writers, we need to be constantly listening out in public spaces for what people say and the way they say it. And so much of the best dialogue is inarticulate – this enables subtext.
In one recurring relationship, a husband constantly tried and failed to interrupt and interject in his wife’s conversational flow. This was funny, painfully real and powerfully, economically reflective of the nature of the relationship.
THE UNSPOKEN – so much of the dialogue was conversationally oblique and inadequate – but in its observed reality it was at the same time moving and profound.
REPETITION – the sense of meaning and profundity was highlighted in several of the songs by repetition of mundane phrases that became moving and meaningful when repeated and phrased in song.
THEMES / ISSUES – some of the dialogue / interviews contained casually-expressed intolerance, racism – and dislike for the sex workers who were visible and active in their street before the murders. These blunt but casual statements felt challenging and provocative – while it never felt like the play was preaching at you or making it easy to take a clear moral stance about the community response to the horrific events they were living in the midst of. The play’s message was effectively ambivalent – and all the more engaging for being so.
PERSPECTIVE / POINT OF VIEW – this story was not told from a conventional or expected POV. The conventional ‘main characters’ in this story are the victims, their families and friends and the murderer. But this story is told from the POV of members of the local community as they observe and experience the effects, the after-shock, of the events of the story. It’s about the response and experience of local residents, ordinary people; about their emotional social response to the news story that overtook their community.
This play has been such a hit – also made into a film – and now revived. It’s encouraging that such an unconventional, odd approach to storytelling can strike such a chord with audiences, that such a particular story centred around such unexceptional people, can feel so universally resonant. It’s the truths of the ‘characters’ responses that is so powerful.
It’s a reminder that there are many different ways to tell and dramatize a story. So often exploring the form, the approach to a story can unlock it – rather than going down the conventional tried-and trusted routes. As writers we should all be acknowledging but then challenging convention.
Reading the programme, it’s also instructive to be reminded that Alecky Blythe, who has made a name as a writer of verbatim theatre, learnt this craft from others. She references both Anna Deavere Smith and Mark Wing-Davey as people who opened her eyes to this way of working. Nothing is completely original. And she came to the idea of adding music to the verbatim mix through the initiative of the National Theatre Studio workshops and being introduced to composer Adam Cork. All of our work is built on our own experience, reading and viewing, on taking the initiative to experiment with form, ideas and stories.
It’s also a reminder that so much of the best dramatic writing is adapted or reconceptualised from other source material. True creativity is rarely about starting from a completely blank page.
SCRIPT READING & DEVELOPMENT Q&A
The next evening zoom session will be on Wednesday July 2nd 6-8.30pm and I am now taking bookings.
Taking part in this session also gives you access to my Script Reading & Development WhatsApp group.
Feedback from the most recent session – ‘Really helpful, encouraging and clear!’
https://script-consultant.co.uk/script-reading-development-qa/
The next newsletter will be on Friday June 27th,
Best wishes
Phil
PHILIP SHELLEY
www.script-consultant.co.uk
Friday June 13th 2025
