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.
The staging on Georgia Lowe’s circular set is often lit up by a horticultural, gremlin-y green light but the schlock and comic macabre elements are slow growers, like the plant at the heart of the drama.
Under the direction of Amy Hodge, it is updated to modern day in its look. This clashes with Howard Ashman’s book and lyrics, whose references to Betty Crocker and “big” (12 inch) TV screens feel like anachronisms. It is all the more unmooring when set beside a modern-day reference to a fulfilment centre from which the florist shop sends packages to customers.
The domestic violence storyline involving florist assistant, Audrey (Georgina Onuorah), and her dentist boyfriend, Orin (Wilf Scolding), is given more meaningful treatment but, as a result, Audrey is played in a dramatic vein, which does not align with the show’s comic grotesque spirit. Her song, Somewhere That’s Green, which encapsulates her dream of living in suburbia and was originally a mix of the tender and the satirical, is especially lifeless when performed in earnest tones, all its humour leeched away.
Orin, as the sadist dentist and domestic abuser is not played like a Bad Elvis, as in the 1986 film by an antic Steve Martin, but as a credible banker type in red tie and chinos, which works better.
The central, nerdy, figure of Seymour (Colin Ryan) as the florist’s assistant who feeds the alien plant, does bring the comic spirit, and has a good singing voice, but his romance with Audrey never quite gels. The singing trio that functions as a doo-wop and Motown chorus, narrating or reflecting on the story, bring a strong sound too.
There are a few oddities on the set, such as a digital clock, which is visually central but has no real significance to the story, and a small screen raised above stage which does not bring anything more than a few basic illustrations and is an unnecessary distraction as well.
What is inspired is the way in which the plant itself is animated. At its core is Sam Buttery, and it is an ingenious creation, finally bringing the missing edge of savage comedy at its biggest and most baroque.
