Little Shop Of Horrors

Card on the table, this is one of my all-time favourite shows, a near-perfect popular musical with a brilliantly witty book and lyrics from the much-missed Howard Ashman and a wonderful '60s-influenced pop score from Alan Menken. The problem with adjudicating a show I love so dearly means that if this production has got it right I'm probably going to come out very happy, but if they make a mess of it... 

The book is based on a Roger Corman b-movie from 1960, the musical tells the story of how a strange and unusual plant, discovered by lowly shop assistant Seymour, suddenly makes a struggling flower shop on Skid Row into a huge success, but at a price. Known only to Seymour, the plant feeds only on human blood, and as it gets larger, it gets hungrier.

While watching this show - a show which was very hip and cool when I was a teen - I sensed that it’s probably not as cool to the teens of today (how old do I feel right now!). What was missing for me was an element which has always been so prominent whenever I’ve visited a PADOS Youth production in the past; the buzz of excitement from the performers.

I think it’s fair to admit that the difficulty of this show had been underestimated somewhat as the overall standard of presentation of this show didn’t live up to what we’ve seen from PADOS Youth recently, although I wholly understand and appreciate that this show wasn’t their first choice and all things considered they did very well to present any production in the very tight time frame you had and with the challenges faced.

Josh Leech is a Seymour who grows in confidence as the plant grows in power, I’d have liked to have seen a more pathetic dweeb in the earlier scenes to give scope to the humour but nonetheless this performance was a good effort to such an iconic role.

Haley Cheetam worked well as florist assistant Audrey. I usually prefer a more real performance than something overly caricature for a portrayal of Audrey and I loathe anyone trying to imitate the original (as most seem to do) played so uniquely by Ellen Greene - although Haley was clearly influenced by Ellen she, most importantly, put her own stamp on it, presenting a very engaging and comedic performance.

With a set and plant hired from ‘Proscenium’, PADOS Youth had been given an older plant which the production team informed me they weren’t overly delighted with, however, I’ve seen the newer plants they offer quite a few times recently and I’d say I prefer these older ones as they have more movement ability and I favour the shape of these pods. Yes, they are in need of a touch up as you could argue they’re a little tatty but they still have character and work perfectly well.

I got very excited when the licence for ‘Little Shop…’ became available with the extended orchestrations with the inclusion of Brass and Reeds, I don’t think Steven Sandiford, Musical Director for this production, did! I’ve heard much stronger sounds from a Sandiford band before and I don’t quite understand what the effort of making alterations to the score to match the film soundtrack added to the production (‘Meek Shall Inherit’ and ‘Skid Row’). I’d have thought that the time and effort being focused on other, more important, areas would have been more beneficial to the production.

Another favourite role to many ‘Little Shop…’ fans is the Dentist, here we had George Platt in the role who excels when given the opportunity to perform larger-than-life. The audience found him hilarious and he certainly didn’t hold back on the energy levels.

The show was directed by Timothy Platt who’d included ad libs in several parts of the script, for a show with such a cult following this was a brave move. Also, there were lots of paraphrasing from (pretty much) everyone throughout the performance which highlights attention to detail being ignored. Characterisations were all prominent and as you’d expect them to be portrayed which tells me that a clear vision of how each of them should be portrayed had been communicated well. I’ve seen (or should I say, heard) the voice of the plant played by a girl a few times now and it can work to good results, Darlia Kay did a splendid job bringing humour and sass to the vocals of this blood thirsty monster.

We had some very picturesque choreography from Helen Wilkinson for a show which is very slight on the dance front, I particularly liked the silhouettes of the three girls back lit onto the shop windows which created an effective and appropriate atmospheric mood.

Making some of the most impressive statements were the girl group of street urchins, we got some impressive vocal performances from these three which are featured much more in the recently updated version of the score.

As you’d probably expect with a youth production, an ensemble had been included to help tell the tale which was sensitively done and without pulling focus away from the all-important 1960s girl group trio who are (or at least should be) central to any production of ‘Little Shop…’!

Well done with facing the challenges head on this year. It’s not been an easy year for you and I admire your passion and determination to not let yourselves be defeated.

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