This Fringe classic pops up most years, with songs such as ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ and ‘Don’t Feed The Plants’ bringing the house down. Little Shop of Horrors is such an entertaining musical because of its hilarious plot involving a plant which grows to an incredible size and the romantic love story of Seymour and Audrey. Violet Shock’s production doesn’t fail to deliver with the entertainment factor as the cast give one hundred and ten per cent to their performance. The creation of Audrey 2, which is the name of the ongoing growing plant, is exceedingly impressive for an amateur production. With all this going for it, it’s such a shame that the majority of the cast struggle hugely to do justice to any of the songs. With bum notes being a painfully regular occurrence and a shocking lack of breathing technique, these performers continually sound out of breath and out of tune. It must be noted though that the young actor playing Seymour stands out as the only one with any vocal training and he works hard to support Audrey who strains vocally throughout. It is understandable why Violet Shock decided to put on Little Shop of Horrors: it is a character-based show where costumes, set and eccentric characters are the main attraction. However, a musical is a musical and bad singing, in my books, is inexcusable. Unfortunately, the actress playing Audrey doesn’t quite provide the vocal strength to perfect 'Somewhere That’s Green,’ which would normally require little rehearsal to perfect. Similarly, the four girls who put together the chorus are more of a hindrance than a help as the bad singing detracts from their smiling faces, jazz hands and comical choreography. The score of this production has been underestimated in its level of difficulty by Violet Shock. However, the show is enjoyable and characters, such as the bloodthirsty Audrey 2 alongside the Dentist, are highly entertaining. Maybe next year Violet Shock should return with an eccentric play rather than a musical as, disappointingly, the singing seemed to come as a bit of a shock to their vocal chords.
