Full details of the cast and creative team for next year’s major new touring production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice have been confirmed.
As previously announced the newest version of Jim Cartwright’s much-loved play will be directed by Bronagh Lagan and will star Off-Broadway and YouTube star Christina Bianco in the title role alongside 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.
They will be joined by Akshay Gulati (East is East, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Bolton Octagon) as Billy, with Anna Hale (London Road, Cuba Pictures/BBC Films) who will understudy the role of LV and Sadie, William Ilkley (War Horse, UK/international tour, The Full Monty, UK tour) as cabaret club owner Mr. Boo.
The cast is completed by Fiona Mulvaney (The Ferryman, West End; Silent Witness, BBC) as Sadie and James Robert Moore (All That, Lion and Unicorn; Fanny & Stella, Above the Stag) in the role of Phone Man. Moore will also be the resident director on the production.
Presented by Katy Lipson and Glass Half Full Productions, the production will launch at Southampton Mayflower Studios on 23 March 2022. The tour will then visit to The Capitol Horsham; Exeter Northcott; Malvern Theatres; Theatre Clwyd; Theatre Royal Brighton; Derby Theatre; Salisbury Playhouse; Liverpool Playhouse; Theatre Royal Wakefield; Crewe Lyceum Theatre; The Lowry Salford; Blackpool Grand; Mercury Theatre Colchester; Richmond Theatre; York Theatre Royal; and Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.
Lagan will lead a creative team that includes musical director and associate sound designer Eamonn O’Dwyer, set and costume designer Sara Perks, with casting by Jane Deitch, lighting design by Nic Farman, sound design by Andrew Johnson and Chris Matanlé as general manager.
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, Beverly Callard as Mari.
Angela Thomas
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