Little Shop of Horrors review – classic rock musical gets exuberant modern-day treatment

Crucible theatre, Sheffield
The singing is strong and the killer plant has a delightful touch of pantomime dame, but some of the schlock comic elements are slow growers

Ever since the extraterrestrial botanical monster named Audrey II first landed on film as a B-movie, its story’s stage and screen iterations have fed off each other, metabolising from a black-and-white crime caper in 1960 to an off-Broadway musical, then transposed back to film in the cult schlock horror movie of 1986.

This production captures Alan Menken’s exuberant, rock’n’roll sound in songs such as Skid Row (Downtown) and Suddenly, Seymour, while the killer plant at Mushnik’s florist shop, which feeds on human blood, has a delightful touch of the pantomime dame about it.

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