Little Shop of Horrors at Hope Mill Theatre 07-10-26 by Fio Trethewey & Georgia Cook
We went to see a press night performance of Little Shop of Horrors, at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester.
This was our third time seeing a version of this particular musical this year, so you could say we’re quite familiar with the material by now! However, any worries that our prior familiarity might dull or in any way diminish our enjoyment of this particular production were immediately soothed. This show is funny, fast-paced, beautifully performed, and the perfect outing for some Halloween musical horror this October season.
Right off the bat, the set was gorgeous, and perfectly designed for the smaller staging space, with especially fun use of lighting at particular moments (a total eclipse of the sun being one of them, and a great use of glowing green wires to represent vines.) The puppets created to depict Audrey 2’s growth across the play were all absolutely breathtaking (in more ways than one!) - from hand-held puppets masking some excellent on-stage trickery, to a full-body suit, and the final monster requiring three performers to puppeteer (shout-out to the invisible and extremely hardworking Julia Frost, Christopher Dobson and Imogen Khan)!
Usually in these reviews we find a handful of stand-out performances to highlight, but in this instance every actor truly was a stand-out. From Jed Berry’s comedic and skittish turns as Seymour, to Maisie Smith’s tragic and wistful Audrey. Benjamin Yates’ turn as the villainous Dentist was equal-parts horrifying and delightfully camp (crop-top dentist coat, anyone?) while Marcus Ayton was fabulous as the bloodthirsty plant “Audrey 2”, owning the stage even as an off-stage voice (and we loved his costume for the bows!)
We also loved all three of Little Shop’s “Greek Chorus”- “Chiffon” (Rio Maye), “Crystal” (Psalms-Nissi Myers-Reid) and “Ronette” (Gabrielle Davina Smith), who managed to show personality for each individual character while still remaining a tight group, and whose dance moves were choreographed beautifully by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille.
From Michael Starke’s Mushnik, to the charming ensemble (with some tight costume changes!) Everyone in the cast had a moment to shine, and not a single weak performance among them.
The songs, of course, are Howard Ashman and Alan Menkin classics, and performed with skill and gusto. Overall, we immensely enjoyed our trip to the Hope Mill Theatre last night, and wholeheartedly recommend this production for some darkly comedic fun. You’ll be in excellent hands!
If there’s anything to be noted against it (and your mileage may vary here, but as professional artists and designers we couldn’t really in good conscience leave it out) - we spotted what appeared to be an AI-generated poster used as a prop in the earlier sections of the show, which for us was immensely off-putting. Given the beautiful set, amazing puppets and props, and stellar performances across the board, seeing AI-generated work used in this production felt unnecessary and jarring, especially as the poster itself could have simply been removed (as we hope it will be) without the play losing anything in terms of story.
Little Shop of Horrors is on at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester until 28th November.