Off-Broadway and YouTube star Christina Bianco will take on the title role in new UK touring production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice next year.
Presented by Katy Lipson and Glass Half Full Productions, the newest version of Jim Cartwright’s much-loved play next month will also star Shobna Gulati and Ian Kelsey.
Often billed as ‘the girl of a thousand voices’, Bianco (Forbidden Broadway) will take on the central role of LV with former Coronation Street favourite Gulati (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Apollo Theatre, Cinderella, Lyric Hammersmith) as her mother, Mari Hoff, and fellow former Coronation Street actor Kelsey (Legally Blonde, Leicester Curve, Grease, West End/UK tour) as Ray Say.
Full casting and details of the creative team will be announced at a later date.
Bronagh Lagan will direct the production which will open at the Southampton Mayflower Studios on 23 March 2022. The tour will then visit Capitol Horsham (28 March-2 April), Exeter Northcott (4-9 April), Malvern Theatres (11-16 April), Theatre Royal Brighton (25-30 April), Liverpool Playhouse (16-21 May), Theatre Royal Wakefield (23-28 May), Crewe Lyceum Theatre (30 May-4 June), The Lowry Salford (6-11 June), Blackpool Grand (13-18 June), Mercury Theatre Colchester (21-25 June), Richmond Theatre (27 June-2 July) and York Theatre Royal (4-9 July).
Set in a northern town in the 1980s, Cartwright’s award-winning bittersweet tale of a shy young woman with an amazing talent for mimicking some of music’s most distinctive female voices debuted at the National Theatre in a production directed by Sam Mendes in 1993. Featuring a show-stopping performance by Jane Horrocks who would later reprise the role on screen in an Oscar-nominated movie, the production transferred to the Aldwych Theatre.
A West End revival in 2009 featured former X Factor finalist Diane Vickers who gave an award-winning performance in the title role. Cartwright also directed a UK touring production of his work in 2012 starring another ex Coronation Street regular, Beverley Callard as Mari.
Angela Thomas
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