The Little Shop of Horrors

The BBEXP (The Beyond Broadway Experience) celebrates 10 years - and what better way to celebrate than with this incredible adaptation of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS - an amateur production like no other, featuring a cast of 200 (!) young performers!

Based on the off-Broadway musical, which in turn is based on the original 1960 Roger Corman horror-comedy, this production was a delight from start to finish! Edinburgh-based BBEXP gives young performers aged 8 to 25 the opportunity to leave the classroom and tread the boards on a professional stage, even if it’s just for the odd show. And what a show it was, staged over two nights! Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should be familiar with the outrageous and hilarious horror-comedy that is Little Shop Of Horrors, which revolves around a carnivorous alien plant named ‘Audrey II’.

Set during the early 1960’s in New York’s impoverished neighbourhood of Skid Row, flower shop owner Mr. Mushnik (Harry Aspinall) isn’t too happy with the way business goes or rather, doesn’t go…rarely selling more than a bunch of roses (and even then he doesn’t have the small change to give to a potential customer). This set-up and the impending doom (‘Little Shop of Horrors’) is sung and performed by Crystal (Kirsty Montgomery), Chiffon (Emma Ssembatya) and Ronnette (Millie Wilson). Oh, and just about everyone else who can fit onto stage! While Mr. Mushnik moans about lack of customers and earnings, his shy and nerdy looking assistant Seymour Krelborn (Huck Whittle) has a slightly more positive outlook, though both acknowledge the fact that they can’t seem to escape their rough environment (‘Skid Row-Downtown’). Only shop assistant Audrey (Jennifer Ford), whom Seymour secretly has a crush on, keeps their spirits afloat - just about. Still, when Mushnik suggests that it would be best to close his store, Seymour has one final trump card up his sleeve by proudly proclaiming he is in the possession of a rather odd plant which he purchased from a Chinese florist during a solar eclipse (‘Da-Doo’). With little to lose, Seymour displays the odd looking plant, which he nicknames Audrey II in honour of shop assistant Audrey, in the shop window of Mushnik’s Florist and passers-by can’t help noticing it. Soon, business is thriving but shock, horror, the bizarre plant starts to wither. It’s only when Seymour accidentally pricks his finger while tending to Audrey II that he realises human blood has obviously a rejuvenating effect on the plant (‘Grow for Me’), but how to keep on feeding a carnivorous plant craving human flesh and blood?

The solution, well, the first one that is, lurks around the corner when Audrey’s current squeeze Orin Scrivello (a hilarious ott performance by Kieran Taylor) asks Audrey on a night out on his motorbike. An arrogant show-off and a sadist (‘Dentist’), Orin is a tooth puller who delights in inflicting pain onto his unfortunate patients, not helped by the fact that he’s usually high on laughing gas. Seymour can’t help noticing the appalling way with which Orin treats Audrey, especially when one day, she turns up at work with a black eye. Although Orin is flash and successful, deep inside Audrey knows that it’s the timid and constantly broke Seymour she’s longing for and she dreams of one day settling down with him (‘Somewhere That’s Green’), though Seymour, an orphan who’s been taken in and looked after by Mushnik, has no grand aspirations. Still, things change thanks to Audrey II, which turns Seymour into a local celebrity, leads to an overall shop revamp (‘Closed for Renovations’) and prompts Mushnik to adopt him as his ‘son’ (‘Mushnik and Son’) - followed by a fantastically choreographed Yiddish-style dance ceremony. Meanwhile, Audrey II (performed in a green outfit by a sultry Rhianne McAllister) has but one thing on ‘her’ mind: ‘Feed me. Git it!’ When Seymour enters Orins’ dental practice with a toothache, and the dentist is high on laughing gas as per usual (‘Now - It’s just the Gas’), things take an unexpected turn when Orin succumbs to an overdose of laughing gas and voila, Audrey II can finally be fed with human flesh…

Act 2, it goes without saying, turns even more bonkers as the plot begins to thicken. Mushnik realises what’s going on after discovering some of Orin’s blood-smeared clothes in the bin plus suspicious looking red specks on the shop floor, confronting Seymour about Orin’s whereabouts (‘Call Back in the Morning’). Meanwhile, Seymour and Audrey confess their love for each other (‘Suddenly, Seymour’) when Mushnik feels inclined to report Seymour to the police. With promises of leaving and vanishing from his shop and his life, Seymour coaxes his boss into taking a few wrong steps and well, here then is another meal for Audrey II (‘Suppertime’)! As the alien plant begins growing and growing and demanding ever more food (‘The Meek Shall Inherit’), Seymour grows more and more uneasy about the entire situation, despite the fact he’s now a much-in-demand celebrity sought after by agents, radio stations and newspapers alike. If he leaves Mushnik’s Florist shop now, he can start a new future with Audrey but how to start a new future without money? If he stays, Audrey II won’t stop demanding ever more human flesh… (‘Don’t Feed the Plants’). Add to this the fact that one business-savvy agent thinks it’s a clever idea to cultivate tiny saplings from the original Audrey II plant (unaware of its deadly secret), and introducing the ‘offspring’ into every American household, there is no happy end in store - not for Seymour nor for Audrey…

Huck Whittle and Jennifer Ford are both terrific as Seymour and Audrey, and Jennifer sure knows how to belt out a tune! The musical direction and choreography are truly impressive given such a huge cast, and it was executed looking slick, effortless and performed with an enormous amount of energy and enthusiasm by all the cast! The set was equally effective and the band played just as fantastically. It’s a mighty shame that the LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS only ran for two nights, but BBEXP returns to the Festival Theatre next July with WONDERLAND - THE MUSICAL.