When you go to buy flowers for the lady in your life I bet you think that a flower shop is quiet and refined, but you may be wrong. This “Little Shop of Horrors” is a respectably run flower shop until the assistant starts to take an interest in botany. He breeds a plant that has an appetite for blood and it grows proportionately to the amount it consumes. Not much more to say about this visit to the West Yorkshire Playhouse except it will be one of your best nights at the theatre. The set is superb and the painting is up to that standard, with the credit going to Jonathan Fensom for this design of a run down railway arches neighbourhood in America during the 1960s. The great book and lyrics are by Howard Ashman and the wonderful rock music in keeping with the time by Alan Menken. Mix this together with the musical direction of Alan Williams and the direction of Christopher Luscome and you have something exciting and out of the ordinary.
The shop ’s owner Mr Mushnic is played with great skill by Jack Chissick who puts up with the “up in the clouds” Seymour played effortlessly by Jeremy Finch, who slides so easily into his part that the seams do not show, as he tends the plant that has taken him over at the expense of everyone else, even his girlfriend Audrey nicely played by Josie Walker. Now we come to the Audrey II, the plant operated by Gerard Swift and voiced by Mel Taylor. This was a masterful collaboration between these two men to bring about something that seemed to be living. The rest of the cast made the show into a whole without whom nothing would have been possible. Just about the right level of sound from Glen Massam brought the music sweetly to the ears.
The audience stood as they showed their appreciation of quality at the theatre. Long may it continue. The singing was great and the acting showed what it is all about, communication with the audience. Grand opera should take a visit to the musical now and again to see what is going on outside their world and the outcome will be for the good of the whole. This was a great night out at the theatre. © BA
“Little Shop of Horrors” is in Leeds from the 7th December until the 8th February 2003.
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