The film, an adaptation of Peter Ackroyd's 1994 murder mystery novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, stars Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy and Douglas Booth.

Kildare finds a diary written by the Golem of the crimes, handwritten in a printed copy of Thomas De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts", in a collected volume in the British Museum Library Reading Room.

He deduces that the Golem must be one of the four men who were in the library on the date of the last entry: Dan Leno, Karl Marx, George Gissing and John Cree.

Kildare acquires handwriting samples of the other three men, while listening to Elizabeth's story about how she was the daughter of an unmarried mother and went from sewing sail-cloths at the docks to becoming a star.

When Elizabeth's abusive mother died, she was befriended by Dan Leno and fell in with his music-hall troupe, performing comic songs while dressed as a man.

Her fellow performer, Aveline Ortega (María Valverde), becomes jealous since she herself is interested in John, and sabotages Elizabeth's first dramatic role.

Elizabeth is entrapped by the theatre's owner, a man known as 'Uncle' (Eddie Marsan) and is forced to pose nude for photographs and to beat him for his sexual gratification.

In the final scene, Dan Leno's troupe perform John's play, rewritten to tell Elizabeth's life story.

'"[4] It was announced on 17 April 2015 that Alan Rickman, Olivia Cooke and Douglas Booth had been cast in leading roles for the film, to be directed by Juan Carlos Medina.

[6] Principal photography for The Limehouse Golem began in October 2015 in West Yorkshire, with filming taking place in locations such as Leeds and Keighley.