Category: Caroline O’Connor

THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE, at the Eternity playhouse, is a revival production of a play written in 1992. The writer, Jim Cartwright, specialises in bringing to life the travails of the British working class and drew attention with his play ROAD (1986), set in Lancashire during the impingement of the Margaret Thatcher government and policies on the people of that Island nation. ROAD’s anger and ruthless observation has turned it into a classic, often revived. THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE, when first presented, carried some cache in the slipstream of that earlier work. However, watching…

Based on a true life murder / court case this is what the writer calls a “sing-a story”. It is not a Dance show. It is Drama. The book and Lyrics follow a conventional linear journey with just the usual curiosity of a terrible serial killer murder, hunt and trial to keep us attentive. The text is sometimes baldly dangerous in its lack of insight or poetry. (The song lyrics are also sometimes so poorly projected that one is no wiser at the end of the song as one was when it began).The music is good but there are echoes…