I’ve always thought of Little Shop of Horrors as The Rocky Horror Picture Show with plants, which I now realise is underselling it. They may share the same high camp, B-Movie absurdity and ridiculous premise, but Little Shop is very much its own creation.
Based on the low-budget 1960 horror film, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s 1982 musical became an off-Broadway hit before Frank Oz brought it to the big screen in 1986, with Rick Moranis as the hapless Seymour. Forty years on, the story of a downtrodden botanist and his increasingly demanding exotic flytrap has taken root at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre.
It’s a joyous production, without a single misstep from the excellent ensemble cast and some outstanding vocal performances. The three singers, Ronnette, Crystal and Chiffon, form a Greek chorus of sorts, their 1960s girl-group harmonies soundtracking the escalating chaos.
Jed Berry is a delight as Seymour, proving himself a credible quadruple threat of acting, singing, dancing and impeccable comic timing. He makes the awkward, put-upon florist both funny and endearing, even as his passivity threatens to turn him into the villain. By the time we reach Suddenly Seymour, one of the greatest musical theatre duets of modern times, Berry has us firmly on his side. He and his co-star for tonight do it full justice.
There’s considerable talent behind the production, too. Carrie-Anne Ingrouille counts SIX among her credits, and it shows. The choreography is fresh, the staging inventive, and the plant-based puppetry wouldn’t look out of place in a Jim Henson vehicle.
I have a real soft spot for the Hope Mill Theatre. Mushnik’s flower shop sits on its compact stage like a little terrarium, its unfortunate inhabitants trapped inside – mostly victims of manipulation or repression, desperate for an escape from Skid Row. There’s something almost immersive about it, given the scale of the performances and the proximity of the audience, with Seymour’s moral compromises growing at roughly the same rate as the insatiable plant. It lends the whole production a frisson that might well be lost in a larger venue.
Little Shop was a staple of my millennial childhood, so I was heartened to see so many young people in the audience enjoying its peculiar combination of horror, humour and humanity for the first time. And while the cartoonish treatment of domestic violence might reflect the show’s 1980s origins, the revenge fantasy of feeding abusers to a giant flesh-eating plant remains stubbornly evergreen.
★★★★★
Reviewed by April Delaney for West End Wilma (photo by Danny Kaan)
