London Road Tickets

Real Words Made Musical: Tickets for London Road

London Road returns for a strictly limited run on the National Theatre’s Olivier stage, in a revival marking the end of director Rufus Norris’ tenure as Artistic Director. This “genuinely groundbreaking” (Time Out) verbatim musical tells the story of the titular road in Ipswich, as a community comes to terms with a series of shocking murders.

What is the musical London Road about?

Autumn 2006, and the people of London Road, a sleepy residential street in Ipswich, Suffolk, are going about their everyday lives - they have to deal with some kerb-crawling and some solicitation, but really? It’s a street like any other. When the bodies of five murdered women are discovered, it rocks the community. “That's the scary thing, you know he could be amongst us walking around with us every day and we, we don’t know”. The revelations that some of the women were sex workers, and that the killer lived at number 79, are a further blow. As the trial goes on and the media descend on London Road, the community must deal with what it means to live at the epicentre of a tragedy.

The History of the London Road Musical

“Powerful, beautiful and unsettling” (Time Out), this revelatory musical premiered in 2011 on the National’s Cottesloe stage - now known as the Dorfman - directed by Rufus Norris, who also helms this 2025 revival. Meticulously pieced together from real-life recorded interviews with the residents of London Road, each musical segment follows the patterns of the original recorded speech and creates lyrics verbatim from the interviewee's own words, creating songs that Time Out described as “raw humanity captured in music” - this is a musical like nothing you’ve ever heard before.

A critical success, London Road garnered three Olivier Award nominations and won a Critic’s Circle Theatre Award for Best Musical. It was revived briefly in 2012, moving to the National’s Olivier stage, and in 2015 a film adaptation, directed by Norris and starring Oliver Coleman and Tom Hardy, was released.

Who are the cast and creatives of London Road?

London Road is a true ensemble piece, with eleven actors playing a chorus of reporters, sex workers and residents of the street - with neither the murdered women nor the killer depicted on stage. Casting has yet to be announced for the revival, but the original cast included Kate Fleetwood (Harlots), Rosalie Craig (Company) and Michael Shaeffer (Girl from the North Country).

The book and lyrics are by Time Out Award-winning playwright Alecky Blythe, based on extensive and in-depth interviews with the people of Ipswich. A pioneer of verbatim theatre, Blythe is the director of theatre company Recorded Delivery. Her previous work includes The Girlfriend Experience, Come Out Eli and Our Generation.

Music and lyrics are by Tony and Olivier Award-winning composer Adam Cork. Cork works across theatre and screen and his previous work includes the composition for Red (Donmar Theatre, Broadway), King Lear (Donmar) and Enron (Broadway/West End) as well as scores for feature film Genius starring Colin Firth and the television adaptation of Richard II - The Hollow Crown, starring Ben Whishaw.

London Road is directed by Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics Choice Award-winning director Rufus Norris, as part of his final season as Artistic Director. Norris stepped into the role in 2015, replacing Nicholas Hynter, and has directed multiple plays for the National including Hex, Everyman, Mosquitoes, and Small Island. His work outside of the National encompasses stage and screen and includes Afore Night Come and Vernon God Little at the Young Vic, Festen at the Almeida and Cabaret at the Lyric and Savoy Theatres.

Book Tickets for London Road at the National Theatre

London Road is a musical like no other - so don’t miss out on this “miraculously innovative” (The Guardian) show at the National Theatre. With a strictly limited run, and as part of Norris’s final bow at the National, you won’t want to miss it - book now!