E-mail to a friend Find tickets

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

Published Wednesday 21 October 2009 at 11:35 by Heather Neill

In its first manifestation, at the National Theatre in 1992, Jim Cartwright’s Lancashire comedy was a fairytale about a reclusive, grieving girl who happened to have an extraordinary talent for mimicking famous songstresses. Jane Horrocks emerged then as a formidable actor with an uncanny ability to sing like everyone from Judy Garland to Shirley Bassey and Marilyn Monroe.

Now, in the era of The X Factor and with the story of the teenager who listens constantly to her dead father’s diva records familiar on film, the piece looks more like a speciality act wrapped up in a vaudeville narrative. Terry Johnson’s production does nothing to minimise the caricatured nature of those surrounding Little Voice - her monstrous mother, the mother’s sleazy agent boyfriend and her good-hearted fat slob neighbour.

At the centre of this revival is 18-year-old X Factor star Diana Vickers. While she acquits herself well as the sad waif before her discovery, there is no doubt that the audience is waiting for her central “turn”. Glittering to her toes, she belts out the medley, showing off considerable vocal skill and sassy aplomb. As her self-absorbed mother Lesley Sharp is excellent, razor-tongued and madly OTT, if in rather better physical shape than the dialogue suggests. This production has no time for pathos - cruel she may be, but she is also desperate - and misogyny bubbles here and in the presentation of obese Sadie, gamely played by Rachel Lumberg.

Sweet, nerdy Billy (James Cartwright), LV’s saviour, represents light - literally, as a techie - in the dark hell of designer Lez Brotherston’s beautifully detailed two-storey house where the electrics flash as unreliably as showbiz fame.

E-mail to a friend Find tickets