Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Would Little Shop of Horrors wither or flourish if it were made today? Originally a 1982 off-Broadway hit (based on Roger Corman’s 1960 film), the musical about a bloodthirsty Venus flytrap is far from a seedling. But it’s repotted here into a production that’s both deliriously heightened and curiously underpowered.It’s no wonder the plant bellows “feed me”: meat and substance are in short supply. The meagre plot (with music by Alan Menken, book and lyrics by Howard Ashman) follows Seymour, who works in a flower shop; he tries to tame the maniacal carnivore and free Audrey, the colleague he loves, from her equally predatory dentist boyfriend, Orin. A madcap pace renders it flimsier still.The early shoots are promising. The plant’s growth is prefigured by a giant sheet shooting to the ceiling and characters sprouting from bins. Jade Hackett’s choreography nods to the plant’s appetite with hands that snap like a flytrap’s jaws or burst through pots where they writhe in green gloves.The plant itself is a kind of hybrid, with puppet flytraps (created by Daisy Beattie and Seb Mayer) operated by the ensemble; flytrap heads are used as hand fans, open like ears or flaring like nostrils. At the centre, a tigerish Sam Buttery gives a striking incarnation of the plant, with flame-like eye make-up. Although the plant grows slightly throughout the show, it’s pretty underwhelming with little sense of a rampaging invasion. There’s a lack of cohesion throughout Amy Hodge’s production. Georgia Lowe’s design nicely contrasts an industrial, insipid grey with saturated psychedelic colours, but outside the musical numbers, Hodge leaves barren space on the stage.The production is left to see-saw between naturalistic and histrionic. Its macabre eccentricity involves dancing teeth for “Dentist!” and morsels of mordant wit: “When I die, which should be very shortly, give me to the plant.” Flags are waved that brandish the plant’s emblem as if a dictator, and a woodchipper fires pellets made from ground-up flesh. When Orin declares an addiction to laughing gas, you wonder if the whole show has been inhaling it.Parallels are clearly drawn between the dentist and the plant. Wilf Scolding’s Orin exclaims “Open wide!” and when he grabs Audrey’s face, his hand clasps it like the plant’s fanged head. But lyricist Ashman describes her physical abuse and low self-worth with glib lines such as: “I’m dating a semi-sadist. So I’ve got a black eye. And my arm’s in a cast.”Although Seymour and Audrey’s tender relationship is also smothered by the frivolous tone, Colin Ryan shows how Seymour is a misfit like the strange plant. His floppy hair, knitted vest and Brummie accent in the American setting portray him as a gawky, droopy sapling who perks up around Audrey. Likewise, when she dreams of a life with him, in the sublimely sung “Somewhere That’s Green”, Georgina Onuorah leans into the spotlight like a phototropic plant. Jessica Hung Han Yun bathes them in dapples of light, as if sprinkling the stage with the seedlings of their burgeoning romance.Buttery’s voice meanwhile has a nectar-rich, velvety purr, like a plant luring its prey with intoxicating perfume. But as much as the flytrap ends up well fed, we’re left feeling undernourished.★★★☆☆To January 18, sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
