Review: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice ***

While she might not get many lines, Jim Cartwright’s Little Voice is the sort of theatrical creation actors must cry out to play – and in this production, directed by Hannah Chissick, Lauren Hood is blisteringly good in the part. The problem is, nothing else in the production lives up to Hood or her voice.

She plays LV as a young woman verging on the autistic. Unable to communicate in her own voice, she pilfers the singing styles of old grand dames to tell her messages to the world.

Condemned to live with her alcoholic mother, she mourns her late father by playing his records. Her mother’s latest lover, Ray Say, overhears LV’s angelic voice and sets her on a path to self-destruction.

The trouble is that everyone around LV – bar Philip Hill-Pearson as an endearing Billy – is deeply unlikeable. It is the point of the script, but the production needs to find something to make us feel any sort of sympathy for the other characters, which it never quite manages. The deep darkness of the script needs levity, but when the most obvious light relief arrives, in the shape of odious Mr Boo, the audience has already been put through an emotional ringer and is unable to enjoy the shades of light and dark. Fortunately Hood’s performance makes this production worth seeing.

To August 20.