London Road

As a theatre piece, London Road was extraordinary enough, a "verbatim" musical drama based on the exact words of Ipswich locals from interviews conducted in the run-up to the arrest and conviction of Steve Wright, the serial killer who murdered six women in 2006 and was convicted in 2008. Wright doesn't figure much in either the play or this big-screen adaptation. Rufus Norris's equally unique film is about the effect his crimes had on a normal suburban street. Trading up from the stage version, the movie benefits from well-known names, notably Olivia Colman as Julie, the woman who unites the local residents. And in the film's only concession to commercialism, Taboo star Tom Hardy appears as a paranoid taxi driver, the physical representation of the fact that in this place where every woman is a potential victim, every man is a suspect. Not all the songs work, but when they do, they chill the spine and reinforce the mood of this powerful story about ordinary people who no longer wish to live with darkness.