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34. Little Shop of Horrors

There are more photos from this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

Little Shop of Horrors by Howard Ashman & Alan Menken - Mushnik

- The London Bubble. Directed by Peter Rowe.

The other rock musical from the Summer of 1989 London Bubble season, this was a faithful production of the wonderful Ashman and Menken show. The real innovation about this production (imposed by budgetary restraints as well as the Bubble's 'house style') was that the actors were also the band. This led to some wonderfully surreal moments as Seymour and Mushnik left the stage at a run only to reappear seconds later on the bandstand, pick up guitars and crash into the opening bars of the next number... People told me there was something particularly odd about seeing me, in full elderly slippered shopkeeper make-up and costume, whacking out the power-chords of 'Feed Me'!

Central to the piece, of course, is Audrey 2, the plant. Given the budget he had to work with, SFX maestro Andy Wilson fashioned an astonishing series of plants out of what was essentially junk! The final incarnation of Audrey II (manipulated by Barnaby Harrison - fresh from puppeteering duties on Spitting Image) was a towering eight-foot monster that could tap its roots to the beat, reach out after people with its branches and swallow actors whole. The voice of the plant was supplied by the awesome Sharon D. Clarke, whose vocal abilities rightly stole the show. (Incidentally, playing against tradition by having a female voice for the plant gave the relationship between Seymour and Audrey II a whole new gloss!) For the encore, we played the song 'Big green mutha from outer space', which appears in the movie but not in the show. For this, Sharon joined us on stage, so the audience got to see the plant 'miming' alongside the actual singer, a conceit which went down really well.

Rob Jarvis was a delightful Seymour and Sheri Graubert a deliciously funny Audrey (both pictured below).

"Jon Glentoran, superb as the flower-shop owner, Mr Mushnik..."

"Glentoran played the florist in true Groucho Marx fashion..."