In 2006, the quiet rural town of Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the bodies of five prostitutes. The residents of London Road had struggled for years with the problems of soliciting and kerb crawling on their street and now had to grapple with being at the centre of this tragedy – and finding out that one of their own was responsible for the murders.

London Road, starring Olivia Colman, Tom Hardy and Anita Dobson, is the film adaptation of the critically acclaimed National Theatre stage production of 2011 and the subsequent 2012 revival. The silver screen version reunites original director Rufus Norris, the National’s artistic director with a number of the stage actors, including Chorleywood’s Linzi Hateley, who plays the part of Helen, the next-door neighbour of murderer Steven Wright.

“Rufus Norris was quite keen to use as many people that were in the stage version as possible, I think,” says Linzi, 44, who has appeared in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Oliver!, Les Miserables, Chicago and Mamma Mia! in her 27-year career, “because it’s very, very difficult to learn and there’s a real skill in the style of it.”

London Road is billed as a musical but not in the sense that most of us would understand – the script, by Alecky Blythe, is an exact replication of recorded interviews with the residents of London Road, some of the women who worked as prostitutes there, and members of the media who reported on the case, and the speech has then been set to musical rhythms, by Adam Cork.

“It’s a very unique piece and it’s causing a real interest,” continues Linzi, who is currently touring with Brian Conley in the musical Barnum. “I know some people wonder if it’s a good idea to have put it to music but it’s very beautifully done and it’s incredibly respectful to the people that suffered in this situation.”

London Road does not depict the murdered women or their killer; it focuses instead on the residents of the street and town and the impact the tragedy has on them, how they cope and, ultimately, rebuild their community.

“It’s about how the human spirit takes over and how communities pull together when something horrible happens,” says Linzi, whose 16-year-old daughter Meg is also in the film, playing one of the two teenage girls in the coffee shop scene, speculating on who the murderer could be. “It’s very moving but very uplifting.”

The speech patterns and pitches were difficult enough for the seasoned stage actors to get to grips with, but Linzi says Olivia Colman, who plays Neighbourhood Watch leader Julie, and Tom Hardy, who plays a taxi driver, both did an excellent job as well.

“Olivia Colman was brilliant, she picked it up very quickly. She has such a wonderful natural quality about her, you don’t feel as though she’s acting at all and I think that’s why she was so perfectly cast in this, dealing as it is with real people.”

The film adaptation is as close to the stage version as it was possible to keep it, with the main exception of the actors having just one role to play in the film compared to the multiple parts the stage actors were required to learn.

“It’s intriguing, thought-provoking and it’s one of those films that you won’t have seen before and won’t see anything like it again,” says Linzi. “You may love it or you may hate it but it will get you talking. It’s certainly something that needs to be out there and I’m very proud to be part of it.”