Review: Little Shop Of Horrors, at Birmingham Rep
The Rep is on a roll. While The Door is showing My Romantic History, the best drama of the year, the main theatre hosts Little Shop Of Horrors, easily the finest musical Brum has seen in 2010.
Similar in its love of 1950s schlock movies to The Rocky Horror Show, it’s about the strange happenings in a down-at-heel florist shop.
Nerdy assistant, Seymour, introduces an exotic plant which is soon attracting plenty of attention.
But the plant comes from outer space, and doesn’t thrive on water and sunshine. It hungers after human blood...
Seymour yearns to progress in life, mostly so he can impress his blonde bimbo of a colleague, Audrey. But the only way he can make a killing is through a killing spree.
Those around him are soon turning into plant food...
Yes it’s gruesome, but Little Shop Of Horrors is also fun, funny and fiendishly smart.
And did I mention that the songs are foot-tappingly fab, while performances are impeccable?
Refreshingly, none of the cast are fading faces from soap opera, or came second in last year’s TV talent competition. Instead, they’re merely multitalented theatre professionals.
What really impresses is that when they aren’t on stage acting, most performers take turns playing instruments in the backing band.
One minute ‘Audrey’ is a foolish floozy. The next she’s blasting sharp notes on a trumpet.
Little Shop is a big, big show. Seriously folks, it would be more than a little horror to miss it.
* Until September 18
