An overpowering mother who has repressed a shy daughter after the death of her father is probably a tried and tested plot for a play, but when you add the fact that the girl has a gift for mimicking singers that she has heard on a collection of records inherited from her father, you should have the basis for a good story. Unfortunately, Garth Tudor Prices’s direction of Jim Cartright’s tale leaves you a little flat. Pip Leckenby’s set never seemed to lift itself from one environment to the other.

Julie Higginson is maybe miscast as Mari Hoff, the mother who tries to domineer her daughter LV. Over powered by her mother LV, short for Little Voice, because she is so quiet and retiring, has a compensating ability to sing in the style of legendary singers such as Marilyn Monroe, Edith Piaf, Gracie Fields and Shirley Bassey to escape this repression. Joanne Redman plays LV maybe too well as she almost fades into the background, but she does come to life when she sings. Robert Hudson plays the looking for the big time agent Ray Say, who by chance hears LV sing and arranges for her to sing at a local night club. Add to this a quiet telephone repair man Billy, played by Iain Jones, well suited to LV, a neighbour Sadie May, played by Ashley Christmas, as a rebuff for the mother and the night club owner Mr Boo played by Claude Close to make the circle complete.

The play went through its plot, but it never seemed to take off and fulfil it potential. The audience went home having been entertained, but ... © BA

“The Rise and Fall of Little Voice” is in Hull from the 11th September to the 4th of October, 2003.