At the heart of Jim Cartwright's play is an implicitly theatrical idea. The young girl we've seen cowering, timid and barely audible in the first half, flourishes in the second half with an extended musical medley that shows her to have astonishing gifts of singing and mimicry.
Like a modern day Ugly Duckling, she demonstrates her hidden potential - the suppressed adult within the unresolved child - in a way that connects directly with the audience. When the part of Little Voice is performed by an actor as vocally talented as Jane Horrocks, who inspired and starred in the original, or Denise Hoey, who leads this production by Visible Fictions, we get a visceral taste of the play's deeper themes: a metaphor for our troubled journey into adulthood.
It's not the only theatrical game Cartwright plays. He tells the story of Little Voice, damaged by her domineering mother and exploited by a greedy promoter, in a manner that reflects its working men's club milieu. The drama is introduced by a showbiz MC (Barrie Hunter in slick and sleazy form) and told in a breezy cartoon style. It's a style slowly undercut by the real emotions traumatising this dysfunctional family.
Douglas Irvine's production is confident enough on the emotional side - Wendy Seager playing the mother as a woman gripped by neurosis - but less certain about Cartwright's comic rhythms. The decision to use mime and sound effects instead of props is distracting, but the greater weakness is a failure to make the characters funny and loveable as well as grotesque.
At the Ryan Theatre, Stranraer, tomorrow (01776 703535). Then touring.
