London Road

By Jonathan Jones

Thursday, July 14, 2011

By now, I would imagine you’ve begun to understand that I have a very high standard for theatre. I will see almost anything, but rarely do I find something that I like, let alone something that blows me away. London Road has done it.

Call it documentary theatre; call it performed ethnography—no matter. People in a town were interviewed and their words were turned into a theatre piece. It’s been done many times before, rarely to great effect, and often quite boring. No matter how interesting the subject matter, you often get a bunch of talking heads and limited action. To deal with this challenge, the artists behind London Road have turned the work into a musical. Thus, the most precious and the most mundane of statements are repeated, harmonized, and brought to life in such a way that cannot be imagined without seeing the work. 


At the start, I will admit that I was definitely cautious, but within minutes I was grinning ear-to-ear. This is not showy musical theatre. This is not a dance or otherwise performance extravaganza. This is simple suburban people describing how their world was turned upside down causing them to reach out to one another to re-imagine what their community could be. There are moments of heartbreak and moments of glee; moments of exasperated embarrassment, and moments of heart so well crafted that I personally wanted to thank each and every member of the cast and crew for reminding me of what I love most about life and theatre. 


Yesterday, I indicated that the theatre gods were deeply unhappy at the National (and from what I understand, the disastrous A Woman Killed with Kindness was no exception tonight), but a very little show with an enormous heart are beating quite loudly at the Cottesloe reminding all who enter that there is still hope beyond the grand yet misguided theatrics taking place on the larger stages.