Little Shop of Horrors

To cap what has been an ambitious and inspired season, BAT are proving that black is the new comedy.

Little Shop was written for an intimate off-Broadway theatre and earned multiple US awards there, so fits into Arts Theatre like a hand into a glove. Its plot is deliciously grotesque, the songs are many and melodic, the actors, singers and dancers are pearls in the crown. An eight-piece offstage band under the confident control of Luke Volker (also a co-director) sets a spanking pace and excellent backing for the singers.

Actor-singer-dancers Crystal (Aurelie Roque), Chiffon (Bronte Devine) and Ronnette (Alex Feifers) act as a Motown girl band, continuity and scene-changers throughout. The versatile Chancie Jessop set opens up, maximising performance area and enabling the setting of increasingly large Audrey II puppets - Josh Daveta (voice) and Tom Yaxley (puppeteer).

Leads Gary Farmer (Seymour), Lauren Ware (Audrey), and Damien Campagnolo (Mushnik) provide a slick professional core to the show. Ware captivates as charming, humble and docile Audrey. She also choreographed and co-directed the show! Farmer captures our sympathies as the self-effacing anti-hero; and Campagnolo milks the Jewishness of Mushnik for all its comic worth. The song and dance Mushnik and Son is a gem. Touchingly memorable are Audrey’s Somewhere that’s Green (and reprise) and her duet with Seymour, Suddenly Seymour.

Costume and character-change whiz, Josh Whitten, creates multiple extras; and we cheered when sadistic dentist Orin (Kieren Davey) got his comeuppance.

Jay McKee