Review: Little Voice deserves to be a big hit on Leamington stage

Jim Cartwright’s 1992 play is a touching story of a shy young woman, Laura Hoff, known as LV or Little Voice, with a remarkable talent.

Overshadowed by her bullying, alcoholic, good-time-girl mother Mari (Lorna Middleton), she spends her time in her room listening to records of 1960s female pop stars. Her talent is in mimicking them, note for note, phrase for phrase. When Mari brings home a new boyfriend, seedy empresario Ray Say (Mark Crossley), he spots an opportunity to make it big as LV’s manager on the local club scene. Thus begins the reluctant rise of LV. I won't tell you of her fall, as that would be a plot spoiler. Suffice it to say that in that fall she finds her own voice and thus her triumph.

There is tragedy and comedy aplenty in this tale of Northern working-class hope, disappointment and redemption, beautifully played by a top-notch Loft Theatre cast, and impressively sung by Nona Davies in the title role. Each of the characters in this six-hander makes their mark, even the simple neighbour Sadie (Sabrina Spencer) whose lines are little more than ‘OK’, and who acts as a comic foil to Mari’s excesses.

But it is Little Voice who carries the day. She has to run a gamut of emotions, from terrified and inhibited teenager to powerful fully fledged woman, and to sing authentically in the voices of Lulu, Shirley Bassey, Cher, Judy Garland and many others. It’s quite an ask on behalf of the company, but Nona Davies rises to it magnificently. Her voice is far from little, and her character acting would grace a larger stage than this were she ever to seek it. She received a standing ovation.

The play is undoubtedly sentimental, but the energy of the cast and Viki Betts’s sharp direction never allow it to become slushy. Nona Davies’s final rendition of that hymn to hope, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, brought a tear to the eye and a smile to the lips of many in the audience.

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice runs until July 22. Visit lofttheatrecompany.com or call 01926 830680 to book.