Francesca Mills takes the title role and Olivier Award winner Jill Halfpenny plays her mother in Robert Hastie's revival of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, which opens in the Dorfman on 2 December before a tour of England. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Jim Cartwright's play is going home. The Rise and Fall of Little Voice was first staged at the National Theatre in 1992, in the auditorium then called the Cottesloe and now the Dorfman, and it returns to that room this winter in a new production directed by the National's deputy artistic director, Robert Hastie. It runs from Wednesday 2 December 2026 to Saturday 23 January 2027 and then sets out on a seven-city tour.
We reported the completion of the company in September. Here is the rest of what you need to know.
Who is starring in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice?
Francesca Mills, an Ian Charleson Award winner whom television audiences will know from Silent Witness, plays LV, the young woman who barely speaks but can sing the great divas note for note. Jill Halfpenny plays her mother, Mari Hoff, and Daniel Ryan (The Bay) is Ray Say, Mari's latest man and a small-time chancer who hears money in her daughter's voice.
Paul Chuckle, the BAFTA winner of Channel 5's The Madame Blanc Mysteries, plays the club owner Mr Boo. Beverly Rudd (Trollied) is Sadie, Adonis Siddique plays Billy and Noel White is the Telephone Man. Alice Croft, Kofi Dennis and Nicky Swift complete the company in the ensemble and as understudies.
Spotlight on Jill Halfpenny
Halfpenny is the company member who already holds the theatre's best-known prize: she won the Olivier Award for best performance in a supporting role in a musical for Legally Blonde in the West End. Most viewers will place her from television, where her recent work includes ITV's The Long Shadow.
Mari is a gift of a part with a trap inside it. She is loud, needy and very funny, and Cartwright hands her most of the play's big comic set pieces, while asking the audience to notice what all that noise costs the girl upstairs. The role wants an actor who can command a room and still let the carelessness land, and a performer equally at home in musical comedy and in hard-edged television drama is well placed to manage both. Halfpenny's Mari arrives in the Dorfman on 2 December, and The Rise and Fall of Little Voice runs there until 23 January.
What is The Rise and Fall of Little Voice about?
LV spends most of her life in her small bedroom in a northern town, surrounded by her late father's records. Alone up there she sings Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Billie Holiday with uncanny precision; downstairs, her mother Mari carries on at full volume. When Mari's new man, the wheeler-dealer Ray Say, hears that voice through the ceiling, he sees a club act and a way up for himself, and LV is pushed towards a spotlight she never asked for.
It is a comedy with a hard centre, very funny about small-town ambition and entirely serious about what happens to a shy person whose gift becomes other people's property. The songs are very much part of the evening. The National's official trailer gives a first taste of the production:
If the player does not load, watch the trailer on YouTube.
Who is behind the production?
Robert Hastie, whose credits include Standing at the Sky's Edge, directs, with Christa Harris as associate director. Set and costumes are by Janet Bird, lighting by Paul Pyant and sound by Mike Walker, with David Shrubsole as composer and music director.
Movement is by Ira Mandela Siobhan and fight and intimacy direction by Bethan Clark. Anne-Marie Speed is singing coach, Hazel Holder dialect coach and Zoe Littleton voice coach. Casting is by Alastair Coomer CDG and Harry McDonald. The production is the National Theatre's own, and its tour is supported by Arts Council England.
When and where can I see it?
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice runs in the Dorfman at the National Theatre on the South Bank from Wednesday 2 December 2026 to Saturday 23 January 2027. Previews run from 2 to 7 December, and press night is Thursday 10 December. Evening performances are at 7.30pm from Monday to Saturday, with 2pm matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays; four January evenings start earlier, at 6.30pm, on Thursday 7, Tuesday 12, Thursday 14 and Tuesday 19 January. Tickets currently start at £24.
Access performances are captioned on Friday 18 December and Friday 15 January (7.30pm), BSL-interpreted on Wednesday 6 January (7.30pm), audio-described on Saturday 16 January (2pm) and Friday 22 January (7.30pm), each with a touch tour beforehand, and relaxed on Thursday 21 January (7.30pm).
After London the production tours England:
- 3-6 February 2027: Newcastle Theatre Royal
- 9-13 February 2027: Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield
- 16-20 February 2027: Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
- 23-27 February 2027: The Lowry, Salford
- 2-6 March 2027: The Marlowe, Canterbury
- 9-13 March 2027: Wolverhampton Grand Theatre
- 16-20 March 2027: Theatre Royal Plymouth
What else should I book if I like it?
- Fourteen Again: more northern wit set to music, in a new musical built from the songs of Victoria Wood at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
- Cloud 9: another modern classic back at the National, as Dominic Cooke revives Caryl Churchill's comedy of empire and desire in the Lyttelton.
- The Jungle Book: the National's family show this winter, in the Olivier, if you want to make a second visit to the South Bank with younger company.
- A Christmas Carol: the Old Vic's tenth-anniversary staging, with Giles Terera as Scrooge, a short walk along from the National.
Looking for more seasonal ideas? See our guide to Christmas shows in London 2026.
