'Little Shop Of Horrors' is known to theatre-goers worldwide, it's a kooky cult classic loved by many. It takes place in a small florist set in downtown New York. It follows a clumsy florist's assistant who comes across an 'interesting plant' that he puts in the shop window which slowly brings success to this down-and-out business.
As the show opened we were met with three dazzling singers, 'The Ronnettes', who throughout the show acted like narrators guiding us through the story ever so slightly pushing the show towards it's unfortunate ending. I enjoyed this slight difference to the show and felt their characters were open for interpretation for the audience. Hoyland, Mountford and Rowett brought a lovely vibrancy to the show and all had spectacular voices. Seymour was played by Ronan Pilkington who I felt played the role exceptionally well, adding some extra comedy to the role with pauses and mouthed adlibs. He had me in stitches! Overall it was very well cast, with strong performances from every actor.
The set was predominately placed in the flower shop, the set is definitely what stood out for me the most. At the beginning of the show everything was black, grey and white reflecting the misery and bleakness of Skid Row. When Audrey 2 is first seen it stood out massively against the colourless set bringing vibrant beauty to the store. As Seymour's success grows more and more colour started to gradually find its way into the set, almost as if the plants were taking over. I thoroughly enjoyed this concept and felt it brought something new to this well known show, amazing work from Director Neil Knipe.
Throughout the show there seemed to be some difficulties with sound and lighting which was a real shame. There was a loss of lines here and there due to microphones not always being turned on and starts of scenes were slightly lost due to lights not coming up quick enough.
I enjoyed the small routines in between scenes and during song numbers, however I feel that the movements of the characters being eaten by the plant needed to be slightly slicker as it was visible to the audience that they were just stepping inside the plant and pulling the fabric over them.
It was great to see a few new and refreshing changes to this show, overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Well done to all involved!
Reviewer - Bethany Suthers
on - 16/10/19
No comments:
Post a Comment