The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

Presented by -The Nonentities (A)

Location - Main House

Standard Ticket Prices

Curtain Up 7.30pm

Deprived of her father and abused by her hard drinking and imposing mother Little Voice turns inwards. There she discovers an astonishing ability to mimic some of the greatest female vocalists of the twentieth century. It is an ability which could deliver the whole world to her on a plate. Yet in her world mere survival is an achievement.

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Production Notes

“ A cracker, original, hilarious and hauntingly sad…. Jim Cartwright is one of the mavericks of British theatre…” Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

“This extraordinary gifted and original voice…” Steve Grant, Time Out

“Playful, magical and terrifying, a view of the world from an unexpected angle….”
The Sunday Times

Little Voice lives alone with her Mother Mari, whose sole purpose in life is to find another man. Mari’s overwhelming presence and crass neglect drives her shy daughter into utter seclusion and she spends much of her time in her bedroom, listening to her late father’s records. When small-time impresario Ray Say, Mari’s latest squeeze, hears “LV” sing, he recognises the gold-potential in her impersonations of famous singers and is determined to exploit it. The whirlwind rush to potential stardom is however too much for “LV” and in the resulting crisis both Ray’s hopes and Mari’s ambitions are dashed.

The play was a huge success at The National Theatre with Jane Horrocks, Alison Steadman and Pete Postlethwaite in the leading roles – and subsequently was as great a triumph in the well-known feature film.

The challenges presented by Jim Cartwright’s remarkable, modern fairy story of a play, both on the actors and in the technical demands it makes, are serious and considerable by any standards. For a busy amateur theatre company at the start of a very full programme presuming to take them on, might accordingly be thought at worst hubristic – at best foolhardy!

These notes are being written at the end of our planning and build-up period, and just before the company has met for the first rehearsal. The task in front of us still seems very substantial - even though some of the technical and physical problems, which seemed insurmountable at the start of the planning process, have shrunken somewhat as they have been confronted. If we achieve anything like success it will be a tribute to the commitment of a large portion of the Nonentities Society, and the friends who have come forward to help us….

We hope that our collective efforts will be sufficient for you to experience something of“the hit” that this, at times, funny, sentimental and savage play can deliver.

Hugh Meredith