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Rise and Fall of Little Voice review

Review: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Richmond Theatre

Review: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Richmond Theatre

“Jim Cartwright’s script gives a grimly comic account of a dysfunctional family living in poverty and squalor.” Jenny Booth reviews. 

⭐⭐⭐

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice is a story about a reclusive, maybe autistic, girl with an arresting talent for mimicking torch singers, who is “discovered” and forced to perform in clubs by her alcoholic mother’s latest boyfriend, Ray. Jim Cartwright’s script gives a grimly comic account of a dysfunctional family living in poverty and squalor. The mother’s hectoring and drunken seductions have their farcical side, although the way she bullies her simple-minded neighbour Sadie is no longer funny to modern audiences. The transformative elements that have the power to elevate the story above its sordid background are the semi-magical nature of Little Voice’s singing talent, which grants her access to an imaginary world of pristine glamour; and the tender unfolding of her attraction to Billy, a taciturn telephone engineer whose obsession with lighting is almost as intense as LV’s passion for Judy Garland. 

Bronagh Lagan’s production amply delivers on the farce and on the kitchen sink elements of the story. Two accomplished Coronation Street actors – Shobna Gulati as the mother, and Ian Kelsey as Ray – perform their selfish, manipulative characters with great comic energy. The mother, Mari, is a bundle of neediness and fury, projecting animosity towards LV for supposedly dragging her down, though there is pathos in the role too – and the pathos needs to be found or else she is nothing but a caricature. Kelsey’s speech as he persuades LV to appear on stage, by greasily appealing to her love for her father with an outrageously made up story about a bluebird, is the high point of the show. The general grittiness is aided by Sara Perks’s ultra-realistic set depicting the inside and outside of a dishevelled terraced house, only slightly smaller than life.  

The pathos and the semi-magical elements of the story have however largely gone missing. The too-literal lighting and set design ensure that the baleful mother is always present, and deny LV the chance to unfold her inner world. This deprives the audience of the sense of wonder that would really have made the show work. It is a great shame. Christina Bianco (aka ‘the girl with a thousand voices’) brings massive vocal talent to the role of LV, but the production skates too quickly over her imaginative world. Akshay Gulati’s Billy is a little too pedestrian to capture the awkward vulnerability of first love. The final scene, as LV finally finds her voice and confirms what the audience has long suspected about the family breakdown, is presented too much on the same emotional note (furious recrimination), and becomes monotonous – if only we could care a little more about the characters. 

Richmond Theatre, until 2 July

Image credit: Pamela Raith Photography