Tom Hardy

When you look at Tom Hardy, few people think, ‘there’s a man who ought to be in musicals’, but he’s setting out to proved them wrong, as The Daily Mail reports that Hardy and Olivia Colman have signed up to star in the musical London Road for Broken director Rufus Norris (another person you wouldn’t necessarily think would be making a musical).

Although as those names suggest, this isn’t your usual musical.

The film will be adapted from the stage version, which is set in the Norfolk town of Ipswich during the time a serial killer murdered five women in the space of just a few weeks. Hardy will only have a small role, playing cab driver Mark,who has a single scene where he sings about the difficult passions he had as a teenager.

Hardy apparently loved the musical on stage and personally approached Norris to appear in the movie version.

The incredible Colman meanwhile is Julie, a Neighbourhood Watch organiser who comes up with the idea for ‘London Road In Bloom’, where they organise and put up hanging baskets full of plants, singing to provide a distraction from the darkness and fear that’s swept over the town. Linzi Hateley, who starred in London Role on stage, will reprise her role as a retired school teacher and Neighbourhood Watch secretary, Anita Dobson is set to play a line dancer.

Eloise Laurence, who starred alongside Tim Roth in Norris’ directorial debut, Broken, will be one of several young schoolgirls.

Rufus Norris is directing from a script he co-wrote with Moira Buffini and the play’s creators, Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork.