London Road, Alecky Blythe’s documentary-musical about the Ipswich murders, is to extend its well-received run at the National’s Cottesloe theatre by eight weeks, to 27 August. The show had been due to close on 18 June.
The extension means that the National’s summer season entitled Double Feature, which had been scheduled to play in the Cottesloe, will now be staged in a backstage studio space, the NT Paintframe.
The move marks the first time that the National Theatre has opened up a backstage space for public performance. Double Feature, a season of four new plays staged in two double-bills, will now play in the NT Paintframe from 18 July to 10 September.
The plays, by NT debut writers Tom Basden, Sam Holcroft, DC Moore and Prasanna Puwanarajah, cover subjects including civil war, freedom fighters, politics in sport and fractured families. They are directed by Polly Findlay and Lyndsey Turner with a cast including Pippa Bennett-Warner and Trystan Gravelle.
London Road, which takes its name from the Ipswich street where killer Steve Wright lived in 2006, looks at the effect the murder of five women had on the local community. The production is based on playwright Blythe’s verbatim interviews with those affected by the murders, with their words set to music by Adam Cork.
CB