Cross-dressing Little Shop Replaces Moby Dick

Paul Taylor-Mills’ cross-gender Fringe revival of Alan Menken’s 1982 sci-fi musical spoof Little Shop of Horrors will transfer to the Landor Theatre next month, filling part of the gap left by today’s cancellation of the planned five-week run of Moby Dick (See Today’s Other News).

Currently at the White Bear in nearby Kennington in south London, where it started on 4 April 2011 and concludes this Saturday 23 April, Little Shop of Horrors will reopen at the 60-seat Landor in Clapham for a run from 5 to 21 May 2011.

Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s musical is loosely based on Roger Corman’s popular low-budget 1960 film about a plant with an appetite for blood. Nerdy orphan Seymour works in Mr Mushnik’s Skid Row florist shop, along with girl of his dreams Audrey, who is dating Scrivello. After a solar eclipse, Seymour discovers a peculiar plant with a bloodthirsty appetite, which he names Audrey II. As his infatuation with the real Audrey grows, so does the plant.

The major London revival of Little Shop of Horrors, starring Sheridan Smith and Paul Keating, started life at the Menier Chocolate Factory before transferring to the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre in 2007.

In this new production, directed by Paul Taylor-Mills and co-produced by the Landor for the transfer, three men and three women alternate between the roles of the Ronettes and the man-eating plant.