TEN years ago, Lauren Hood first caught the eye on a York stage at 13, playing the title role in Annie for the York Light Opera Society at the Theatre Royal.

“Miss Hood, who cannot be much older than Annie’s 11 years, reflects the passing moods wonderfully and tugs at the heartstrings with Tomorrow and delivers a smile that positively sparkles,” wrote Martin Dreyer in his notice for the Evening Press.

Here was a North Yorkshire talent destined for the professional stage. Sure enough, now 23, Lauren is starring at Hull Truck Theatre as Little Voice, the agoraphobic who can impersonate all the singers in her late father’s vintage album collection that keeps her company in her bedroom cocoon in Jim Cartwright’s dark, grotesque play The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice.

“My agent asked if I wanted to be seen for it and I jumped at it as Little Voice is a part I’ve always wanted to play,” says Lauren, who cut her teeth at the Kirkham Henry Performing Arts Centre in her home town of Malton.

The rise and rise of Lauren Hood had already seen her make her professional debut on the West End stage, fresh out of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and into the role of Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel, for which she was nominated for a TMA award.

“I had eight rounds of auditions for Carrie, when I’d just turned 21, coming straight from Mountview,” says Lauren, whose college days ended with her receiving a first-class honours degree and the Gyearbour Asante Award for Acting, having arrived in London on a scholarship.

Landing the role of Little Voice – the part that Jim Cartwright wrote for Jane Horrocks in 1993 – required a mercifully quicker audition process. “I got it after only two,” says Lauren.

Revealingly, director Hannah Chissick had picked out Lauren to play Little Voice as soon as she saw her. Or, more specifically, as soon as she saw her photograph. “She decided she wanted me just from my headshot, and when she saw me for the audition, she said, ‘I really hope you’re good, as I like you already from your picture’.”

She was indeed “good”, just as she was when playing Betty in Victoria Wood’s Christmas Special for the BBC, Laura in the UK tour of the musical Dreamboats And Petticoats and Martha in the British and international tour of The Secret Garden.

She was thrilled that Little Voice would now be her next role. “I’d seen the film years ago and it was just something that had caught my eye. It was the impressions she did and her character, as she’s so complex,” says Lauren. “She can actually talk but doesn’t get the chance to because of her overbearing mother.”

The inevitable talking point is not so much how Lauren handles Little Voice’s soft, quiet, northern talking voice but how she masters all those other, singing voices, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey, Lulu and the rest.

Jane Horrocks was already known for her remarkable ear for impersonating voices. Not so, Lauren.

“Doing the impressions was a challenge and it wasn’t something I necessarily thought I could do – though I like doing voices and impersonating people in a fun way – but when I got to the auditions Hannah was really pleased with me.”

Once the part was hers, Lauren set to work with Hannah and musical director Mark Aspinall.

“We sat for hours and hours just listening to voices,” she recalls. “YouTube was really useful as you can look at their expressions, their mannerisms and what makes them unique. Watching Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe, we had to pinch ourselves to remind us that we were working, not just watching for pleasure.”

Hannah’s production opened last Friday and already Lauren is making a good impression, pardon the pun, but you sense she feels more is yet to come. “Mimicry wasn’t something I had thought about seriously and I’m still not sure how good the voices are,” she says. “I just know that I’m enjoying it, so maybe it’s something I can take further.”

She already has revealed a talent for differing accents.

“I was American in Carousel, West Country in Victoria Wood’s show, and Laura in Dreamboats And Petticoats was Essex/London. Voice is something that really defines a character and I especially like making my voice relate to the role – and Little Voice is something different because she’s a quiet one. It’s a real contrast to the bubbly roles I’ve played.

“It’s also the first play that I’ve done as all the others have been musicals where you’re miked up and your volume level is down to someone else.”

Be assured, Lauren Hood has found her voice in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice and the talent that was nurtured at Kirkham Henry, York Light Opera Society, Ryedale Youth Theatre, York College, Shipton Theatre Company and Malton and Norton Operatic Society is in full bloom.

• The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice runs at Hull Truck until August 20, followed by a national tour (Oxford, Croydon, Peterborough, Mold, Kingston) until September 17. Hull box office: 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk