Skip to main content

Little Shop of Horrors


Pitlochry Festival Theatre
3 stars
 From Rocky Horror to Forbidden Planet, sci-fi B movies and rock and 
roll nostalgia have been all the rage for now. Howard Ashman and Alan 
Menken's 1982 stage musical even has the parallel universe luxury of 
being both inspired by one such feature film only to be adapted into 
another. Based on Roger Corman's 1960 yarn about a blood-sucking plant 
who eats up a Skid Row flower shop, Little Shop of Horrors isn't the 
obvious choice to open Pitlochry Festival Theatre's Summer Rep season. 
Nor, in John Durnin's production, does it fully spark into the sort of 
big campy life required to make it such a ridiculous pleasure, even as 
it tackles how greed and money corrupt in a dog eat dog – or rather, 
plant eats man – world.

It's not without its charms, however, from the moment the girl group 
turned Greek/Brechtian chorus shimmy out of Mushnik's recession-hit 
store, to the alien plant's devouring of everything in sight. Jo Freer 
as Ronnette (her partners in song are called Chiffon and Crystal) is 
especially sassy. The co-relation between poverty and shop-girl 
Audrey's abusive relationship with slicked-back dentist Orin suggests 
something beyond cartoon capers, even as Kate Quinnell skirts a thin 
line between pathos and comic timing as Audrey.

As has become a tradition in Pitlochry musicals, all of the cast double 
up as the house band, with assorted trombones, clarinets, flutes and 
guitars being wielded to soundtrack each number. While such an approach 
gives a rough and ready streetband feel to proceedings, it never fully 
captivates in an intermittently funny show that should have spawned a 
monster.

The Herald, June 7th 2012

ends 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL