Venue: Inverleith Church Hall
The first problem I had was in finding this venue as it is 500m off the top of the festival map. The second problem was getting there (walked), and finding dinner (no restaurants, so crap pizza).
This was the closing night for the show and the house was full (possibly a majority were relatives) and a very vocal bunch they were. The cast consisted of the major characters, plus a chorus of five singers who helped move the show along through scene changes and such, and a large backing chorus (about 30) who came onstage for the major numbers. Ages for the cast ranged from about 12 to 20ish. The band were small and hidden behind the stage.
This is the fourth theatrical version of this show I have seen and each time there has been a new way of creating the plant. This version had Audrey II made of foam covered with cloth with two people operating like a puppet. It was convincing but, as always, lip sync was a problem. The voice of Audrey II was female (makes it 50-50 on that count), and she played her part very well.
The main cast members also did an admirable job in their acting and singing roles, for what is a very challenging musical, in both range and breadth. The crowd favourite was Oren the dentist who came on as Elvis and became more and more camp as his part progressed. Audrey did excellently with the characterisation although her singing in some of the early songs did lack a bit of passion, I felt.
As always with a large cast, there were a few dud scenes, some minor mishaps with the music and a couple of the extra songs didn’t really do much for me. I also thought that they should have invested in a follow-spot rather than the three static spots they had. Still, the audio was generally excellent and all cast members knew their lines.
The show? Well, it’s based on the film/stage show/film of the same name. It is about a mysterious plant that appears in a florists and causes things to happen. I was surprised how many audience members appeared not to have seen this, but perhaps I’ve seen it too often…
So if you have a time machine and can go back to last week, I would recommend this as an entertaining night out for the whole family (the company that staged the show are the Forth Childrens Theatre, by the way). Otherwise, catch them next time the festival is on. I’m sure is will be just as polished as this was.
For booking details go to Little Shop of Horrors