AN EARLY frontrunner for the best Britflick of '99, this poignant and hilarious little Northern low-budgeter is one of the most savagely funny and warmly human yarns to emerge from across the water in many moons.

Directed by Mark Herman (Brassed Off) the film has all the Northern-realist feel of his last work, and ten times the humour: it showcases three knockout performances from three wonderful actors playing three incredible characters, and if something as insubstantial as The Full Monty can garner awards by the bucketload, then this should be Oscar material.

Set in grim Scarborough, the film has all the glamour and sophistication of an episode of Bullseye. The characters are as motley and memorable a bunch as I've seen in recent years: Jane Horrocks gives a phenomenal performance as the Little Voice of the title, a girl so shy and mousey she can barely speak, who has spent her life to date stuck in her attic listening to the records of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and the like. Her father is dead, and her mother (Brenda Blethyn) is a motor-mouthed, promiscuous alcoholic in her fifties, with all the dignity this implies. Best of all is the great Michael Caine in an immortal role as a slimeball second-division impresario/talent agent who is shagging Blethyn on a regular basis, but only because he is smitten by Horrocks' singing voice and reckons he can turn her into a star.

His mate (Jim Broadbent) runs a foul establishment called Mr.Boo's, which serves up such delights as karaoke, strippers and bad stand-up comedians. Ewan MacGregor, departing from type, meanders around as a shy pigeon-fancier secretly besotted with the hermit-like Horrocks, who to her increasing terror, finds herself at the centrepiece of Caine's masterplan for world domination, which involves unleashing the girl onto the stage, not exactly her natural habitat. Blethyn and Caine, in particular, are a joy to behold, elevating tacky seaside-town chic to an art form, while the script is so compassionate and insightful you can hardly believe your luck, given the surroundings.

The general laugh-a-minute tone of Little Voice doesn't detract in the slightest from the pathos at the heart of the tale, and the narrative deliberately gets as mad and preposterous as is humanly possible, culminating in one of the weirdest and most wonderful finales ever witnessed on celluloid.

A film so stunningly enjoyable I'll have to watch it again to make sure it was true, Little Voice truly is the bee's knees and the dog's bollocks.