The Rise and Fall of Little Voice tells the tale of the relationship of a loud brash northern mother, Mari and her shy daughter, Little Voice. Following the death of her equally retiring father, Little Voice stays at home pretty much all the time, playing his old gramaphone recordings of divas from years gone by while being constanting ridiculed by her mother.
Anyway, you know the story.
First mention is the set. As the curtain rises, we see a cross section of a house, the living room and kitchen downstairs and Little Voice’s bedroom upstairs, complete with gramaphone and piles of records with some stuck on the wall (no picture of her father though). Downstairs there are two further external doors that lead the the front and back of the property. Upstairs there are two doors that we never go through, but the cast use, leading to Mari’s bedrooma nd the toilet. The stage is wonderful and is on a turntable. About twenty minutes into the show, the house turns for the first time and we are outside the front in the street. From then on, it turns regularly and in the second half a further setting drops in from of it which is Mr Boo’s club. It reminded me of the mobility of the Les Mis set and I don’t think I have ever seen such a large set move so often.
The set is a huge plus but there is a need to tighten up on the set changes. A coupe of times there were scenes that felt like they were just put in as fillers because there was a need to keept things moving while they waited for the set to move. Also, when the set moves to the outdoors street scene, the sound deteriorates significantly. The Vaudeville has a deep stage which is fully opened and as the Billy and LV characters, both of whom are quietly spoken are talking, there voices begin to disappear to the back of the stage and it was hard to hear from the Dress Circle. This will be recognised and corrected, I’m sure.
Lesley Sharp plays Mari Hoff, the hard drinking, man chasing mother of Little Voice whose best days are behind her. Lesley Sharp, is wonderful and Mari must have more than 60% of the entire dialogue and is responsible for maintaining the pace of the show, which she does brilliantly until the last few scenes. The most admirable thing about her character is that Little Voice and Sadie, two of the three characters she interacts with say virtually nothing for most of the show. She is heavily relied on to keep the show moving.
Her portrayal of Mari is so strong that you don’t care about her tongue in cheek, slightly over the top Northern accent. She has created an over the top, larger than life, character which is totally beliveable. It’s hard not to smile she goes from one speech to the next, living in a world of her own.
Marc Warren is Ray Say, Mari’s boyfriend, slightly sinister wide boy and ‘agent to the stars’ who hears Little Voice sing by accident and then pursues her toget her on stage. Mark’s performance is solid and the bluebird scene which folks may remember from the film is fantastic. You can see exactly how he is manipulating Little Voice and how she doesn’t see it. There is little to like about Mark’s Ray. He plays it very straight and gets it completely spot on.
I did however missed the vulnerability that Michael Caine had as he staked everything he had on Little Voice. There is none of that in the play, but Mark has some dark moments, particularly the final scene with Mari that held the audience’s attention. That particular scene is a high point, moving from what had been a show played for laughs to a serious, difficult end to a relationship that in reality, never existed for him but was everything to her.
Rachel Lumberg plays Sadie, Mari’s best friend and next door neigbour who says virtually nothing except ‘ok’ on a regular basis. Sadie is somebody that my mum would call ‘bonnie.’ She is a very large lady and spends a lot of time acting physically and saying nothing while either Mari and Ray or Mari and Little Voice are interacting. It’s a key role that gives Mari a point of interaction that shows her vulnerability while nobody else is there. Rachel is brilliant, plays the role absolutely perfectly and the Jackson Five dance scene is hysterical. There is a point towards the end where Sadie leaves the house that is heartbreaking. (cant say too much)
Also, one of the most touching points of the show are the brief moments where the closeness of Sadie and LV comes out. Two quier people who have nothing in common other than they can both understand what the other goes through at the hands of Mari. Very subtle stuff and beautifully performed. It doesn’t happen much but is is audibly appreciated by the audience.
James Cartright plays Billy, the quiet boy who lives with his grandad and spends most of his time in his grandads shed. Billy is attracted to LV and you feel that if he didn’t speak to her to try and make conversation, he probably would never speak to anyone. James gives an Alan Bennet-esque performance and his scenes with Little Voice give avery important diversion from the mayhem that happens in the house when Mari is around, which is most of the time. Billy is well acted, but here is a need to work on the Billy/LV interactions. They are both very quiet characters and the relationship is important to the plot, but I found myself feeling slightly uncomfortable with the way the pace changed and his scenes felt a little overlong sometimes. It needs tightening up a bit.
Diana Vickers plays Litle Voice. The relationship between LV and her mother provides the tension that underpins the show. LV was close to her father and characteristically similar. Quiet, shy, not wanting to be part of the world outside, living for his music. She dislikes her mother who she beleives led her father to an early grave.
In the first act, The character says very little. She is constantly onstage, moving between her room upstairs, retreating to the music that keeps her safe and downstairs to the ‘lair’ of her mother which represents the pain and torture of a world she doesn’t want to be part of and has found a way to deal with by blocking it out as far as possible, occasionally letting out small quiet comments which are her way of trying to do just enought to keep a distance between them and giving her mother the thing that she ridicules the most, that LV never says anything.
The highlight of the first half is something I dont want to say too much about, but there is a running gag through the show which also forms a momentary diversion at the point where Little Voice first sings. The gramaphone stops for a particular reason and Little Voice continues the (very well known) song. For a split second your senses become suspended durign the diversion which masks the very clever switch from recording to live singing and then after a slight deley you realise, it’s no longer that world famous diva from days gone by singing that instantly recognised classic, it is Diana Vickers.
...and it is one of the best, biggest impact things I can remember seeing and hearing in a theatre. Perfectly executed, the audience is taken completely by suprise and responds. Boy, did they respond!
From that point, everything in the show kind of becomes secondary. The plot, this very strong cast and this very strong play becomes a support role for what the audience is waiting for, which is to see what Little Voice, Diana Vickers will do next.
In the first act, there are four impersonations. You recognise them all immediatly and you smile. Sometimes you laugh because you are brilliantly lead up to them by the context of the show at the time and as Little Voice becomes each character, she is so damn good.
The first half closes with Ray Say having bought Mr Boo to hear Little Voice sing, which he does from the street and an expectation that she will sing in his club. Something all but Little Voice celebrates.
The second act commences in the club and the first LV live set. Here is where I have to say that I cannot say too much. The first part of the second act is as magical piece of theatre as you will see. I intended to make a list of the impersonaltions, but I couldn’t. They came thick and fast. A handful in the first club scene. More in the main club set and even more and Little Voice loses it with Ray Say in their final scene. I hten tried to at least add up the impersonations. I couldn’t do that either.
There are a few things I want to say about Diana Vickers performance as Little Voice. First, in her own right, Diana is a very strong singer. At the end she sings a song in her own voice which demonstrates how good she is, and throughout her singing voice, bearing in mind she barely ever sings in the same voice twice, is fabulous.
Next Diana is a natural mimic. Finding an artist to play Little Voice must have presented an immense challenge because this isn’t just about finding a top actress to bounce off Mari and create a believable oppressed introvert, vulnerable enough to have a relationship with a sweet boy whilst being forced to the point of crackign under the strain. They needed someone who could genuinely impersonate, not just sing, but also physically a huge number and I mean a huge number of famous female artists singing their best known songs. There was one song, which you instantly reconise after the first word and it wasn’t in the film or mentioned in the trailer and I thought as I heard it, there is no was you can do HER!
But she did and did her rather well.
Some of her impersonations are good, some are very good and the odd one had the audience spontaneously breaking out in applause. At one point I realised they I was hanging off the edge of my chair so much, that I was hanging over the folks in the row in front of me. A bizarre moment.
One fianl throught about Diana Vickers. She can act. Very well! There are long periods where she is on stage but not the focus so she has to react and act physically, with her face. She is great at this. She doesn’t have to say anything, you know what she is thinking and what she feels. Vital to get this complex character across to the audience. There are times will Billy where she is attracted to him and letting her guard down, times with Ray where she is calling him mad and not trustign him and then changing in the bluebird seen to a trust in him which she doesn’t quite understand herself, then the deep dislike of her mother which finally explodes in the last moments. Diana Vickers has created a character with different shades and levels. Discovering how good she is as an actress was a real bonus.
This is a near top quality show. There is one major issue that i think they have to address. The show is too long by 10-15 minutes. The first half is strong. The seond half up until the main performance of Little Voice is also great and then the show doesn’t seem to know how to tie together all the loose ends and finish smoothly. It gets dark but unnecessarily self indulgent. At one point in the second half I was planning to come again next week. By the end I was thinking that I will leave it a few weeks. There are unnessessary and overlong scenes and a dramatic comady with a dark side tries to become very dark and dramatic which spoils it. Mari, who is a brilliant northern female character using the type of language a northern woman would changes in her last couple of scenes into a broken woman using words that are just way out of character. Slightly painful to watch, having spent most of two hours beig entertained by a top quality cast and a top quality play. A bit like watching Alf Garnett breaking into a speech from Hamlet and trying to do is seriously. Just absolutely wrong and you think, why? Why ruin it?
I found myself wondering what the original play with Jane Horrocks in in the early nineties was like. I wish I had seen it, not that my mum would have let me go to London when I was so young. I also kept comparing it with the film, which I suppose is inevitable. I was happy that there was a high level of consistency between the two. Anyone who has seen the film would realise how similar they are. There are several passages that are almost identical. The obvious differences were that instead of keeping pigeons, Billy was into light shows, and a big omission was a proper explanation for Ray Say’s demise. In the film, Michael Caine hocks everything he has and when everything unravels for he, you understand his desparation and resignation as he sings Roy Orbison’s ‘It’s Over’ in the club. That scene is also in the play and well acted, but there is nothign in the play about Ray Say putting himself in deep debt to try and promote LV or justifying the club scene, which was slightly disappointing.
Final comments
The show has several points where bad language is used but it is very suitable for kids in their early teens.
Natalie Garner, the stand in for Little Voice has a wonderful voice. I saw her in Spring Awakening and am looking forward to going again when she is on.
The Dress Circle where I was was only 60% full. This is a very disappointing sign of the times. This show really needs the support because it would be a tragedgy if it closed early. It has so much promise.
The Vaudeville is a narrow theatre and I was in the middle of the Dress Circle. Even with the lights down I was aware of my surrounding as much as the stage and with the slightly overlong scene changes I found my mind wanderign a bit. If you go, try and get a seat in the stalls or the front of the Dress Circle.
I would strongly recommend this show for the right reasons, because it is a strong play with a strong cast and will give you a great night out. I will be interested to see when I go again if they address what I think are issues that stop it being as good as anything I have seen recently.
More information , see
http://www.littlevoicewestend.com
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