"Little Shop Of Horrors"

Gilly Archer Theatre.

Bilborough College.

From an audience point of view, this is one musical that you can't go wrong with. It has everything going for it, comedy, great songs, romance as well as a dark, macabre man eating plant that lives on human flesh and blood, sado-masochism, greed, murder, lies and deceit. And all this in a couple of hours!

The story follows a nerdy florist shop worker, Seymour Krelborn, who raises a plant that feeds on human blood and flesh. Up until then the shop was on the skids, well it is located on Skid Row, and on the verge of closing down, but this new, exciting and rare plant that Seymour had discovered was going to save the day as it attracted new customers to the shop. Rapidly the new plant, Audrey 2, transforms Seymour from zero to hero, but what a cost to Seymour, the flower shop owner, Mr Mushnik and his other shop worker, and Seymour's secret crush, Audrey.

Seymour, the nerdy florist assistant, is played by Ashton Knight. He has a lovely physicality in his acting which brings Seymour to clumsy life. His wide eyed-look also projects the nervousness of the character well. Great voice as well; maybe a little too loud in some of the big notes, but that could be toned down with the sound department, but his softer tones are really nice to hear. Good leading man qualities.

Mr Mushnik, the flower shop owner, is played by Jake-Logan Loftus. Again the volume may need to be toned down slightly, but this also shows some excellent projection in his voice, and I love the consistent accent, even in song. Jake-Logan is going to be a strong character actor in the future.

Audrey is played by Caitlin Creswick. Another expressive actor as I noticed that when Seymour's name was mentioned by Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette towards the start of the musical, Audrey's eyes lit up. Singing registers are the same as Ashton with the softer scale sounding great but the bigger notes just a tad loud, which makes me think that this could be due to getting the volume on the mic packs equalised, or just the fact that the cast may not be used to using the mics.

Audrey II, the blood-thirsty, man-eating flora is voiced by Illijah Weaviung, and what a voice! Illijah has one of those really soulful and, I don't really like to use this advective with a college production, but dirty and bluesy voice, giving a real seedy side to the character of Audrey II.

Audrey II is operated by Grace Tomlinson and Katie Peel. In a production like this where a large puppet is being operated and separate to the puppet's voice, sometimes there could be timing issues to make the jaws of the puppet coincide with the script being spoken. There were a couple of late movements but this is a big puppet to operate and on the whole the timing was pretty well matched to Illijah's vocalisation of Audrey II. This role as puppeteer is not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination.

Orin Scrivello, the bullying, sado-masochistic sleazeball of a Dentist, is played by Tyler Peters. This role is one where you can go over the top and because the character has such an over the top personality, it would still be in line with the character description. Tyler's hip thrusting accentuated the sado-masochistic perversions of the Dentist, and I loved the look of absolute glee in his eyes as he fondled his dental apparatus and the thought of using the novocaine. Perfect casting and I am sure that Tyler loved playing Orin.

Chiffon, Crystal and Ronette are played by Niamh Hunter-Woods, Emilia-Mai Owen and Connie Tegerdine respectively.  Connie I know well from performing parts at the Nottingham Arts Theatre. This threesome provided the close-knit harmonies for the Sixties style, trio straight out of a Phil Spector production studio. These three provided the first set of tingles for the evening with their well-blended vocals with just a few well-placed vocal acrobatics.

There's a big ensemble in this show with some playing minor roles and they are Lowri Moore (Customer), Lucy Horton (Interviewer), Emily Crompton-Brown (Mr Bernstein), Mio Davies-Bright (Mrs Luce), Eva Moss (Skip-Snip) - marvellous accent dahling!, Fox Reeve (Patrick Martin), Joseph Coke (Wino #1) and Daniel Adamson (Wino #2) - both excellent character acting drunks and I must mention Daniel's energy throughout, especially in the choreographed ensemble pieces, and he looked like he was having the best time performing from his smile.

The rest of the ensemble were made up of Emma Carnegie-Brown, Kayla Burgess, Lexie Hart, Tian-Tian Gosling-Lewis, Sam Curtis, Mary Scothern, Jasmine Armstrong, Esme Martin, Alexa Tomlinson, Niamh Burrows, Connie Webster and Thomas Pears. Every one of them projected so much energy.

Directed by Grace Tomlinson and Katie Peel, they presented an energy packed and fun show that sped along at a mighty pace. I will here though just mention one thing that I spotted. When Seymour goes to visit Orin he carries the gun in his pocket and does not have a baseball cap on. These are important details as the reason why Mr Mushnik is called into the police station is that they wanted Mushnik to identify the baseball cap as Seymour's and also to ask why the Mushnik carrier bag was at the dentists. I have seen this musical so many times over the years and spotted this tiny faux pas as soon as Seymour entered the dentists.

Set and Props Designers for the show are Anna Carter, Nimrat Gill, Alexandra Bonam, Silas Patrick, Kelchi Binch, Maryam Welbourne, Ash Kirkham and Holly Allsop. What a brilliant set design it is as well. Even though the main part of the set is constantly in view, there are a few changes, additions and adjustments throughout the show, as well as a clock with movable hands. A resounding success for the Stage Manager, Katie Peel, Deputy Stage Manager, Grace Tomlinson and the Backstage Crew, Milan Wijesuriya and Khadijah Usman.

Choreographed by Evie Swetnam-Prince. From the big ensemble numbers to the smaller choreographed pieces like the wonderful "Mushnik & Son" piece, the choreography was brilliant fun to watch and, as I've said earlier, all you have to do is look at the faces of the dancers to see the joy that they got out of these dance routines to know that the performers were enjoying this show just as much as the audience.

I'm not normally a massive fan of backing tracks for musicals but the one used for this performance worked well, and sounded really good. Performers have to be really on their game and have their timing spot on because if you miss any cue on a backing track, you just have to try and catch up. Fortunately every one was on their game and the timing for the tracks were all spot on. I would have liked the backing turned up just a notch though.

Sound Design is by Mhari Sanderson and Matthew Price, and I've already mentioned part of the sound earlier in this review. I know that this was the first performance with an audience and so tweaks can be made now they have the heard how everything sounds with an audience, as that does make a difference in volume levels. Apart from that, the sound was really good and the sound quality seems to get better every year.

Lighting Design is by Camille Capon and James Wilfred. Absolutely no issues at all.

The Costume Designer is Esme Barnes and Deputy Costume Designer Kawa Emec. Loved all the sparkle at the end.

Make Up Designers are Maddison Vowles and Emma Jane Chan. Audrey's black eye make up looked really realistic and painful.

Hair Design is by Amiyah Britton and Alayah Myers.

The show is such a lot of fun to watch and I could see from the cast, also to perform in. The soundtrack is one of my favourites with songs like "Suddenly Seymour", "Somewhere That's Green", "It's the Gas", "Ska Doo", "Skid Row", "Feed Me" and of course the title track, all performed with great energy at Bilborough College by this cast. This is a pre Christmas treat for all the family so go and have a cracker of a time!

"Little Shop Of Horrors" is currently being performed at Bilborough College until 11 December.