LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS – New Cast Album (Ghostlight Records – CD and digital album)
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Ashman and Menken’s musical Little Shop of Horrors is a classic and the original cast recording from 1982 with Ellen Greene and Lee Wilkof is one of those ‘must-have’ recordings for any musical theatre fan. With such a well-known, and loved, cast recording it is hard to think that any subsequent one could break through its shadow but – it just has done.
This 2021 recording, with Tammy Blanchard, Jonathan Groff and Christian Borle leading a fabulous cast, is an absolute delight – dare I say even better than the original? The characterisations by the three leads are beautiful. They absolutely bounce out of the recording, grab you by the throat and won’t let go until Audrey II has its wicked way.
I should, at this point, list the rest of the cast, as they make the whole recording perfection: Tom Alan Robbins, Kingsley Leggs (a deliciously evil Audrey II), Ari Groover, Salome Smith, Joy Woods, Stephen Berger, Chris Dwan, Kris Roberts, Chelsea Turbin, Eric Wright and Teddy Yudain.
Tracks: ‘Prologue/Little Shop of Horrors’, ‘Skid Row (Downtown)’, ‘Da-Doo’, ‘Grow For Me’, ‘Ya Never Know’, ‘Somewhere That’s Green’, ‘Closed For Renovation’, ‘Dentist!’, ‘Mushnik and Son’, ‘Sudden Changes’, ‘Feed Me (Git It!)’, ‘Now (It’s Just the Gas)’, ‘Act 1 Finale’, ‘Call Back in the Morning’, ‘Suddenly Seymour’, ‘Suppertime’, ‘The Meek Shall Inherit’, ‘Sominex/Suppertime (reprise)’, ‘Somewhere That’s Green (reprise)’, ‘Da-Doo (reprise)’ and ’Finale (Don’t Feed the Plants)’.
For the hundreds of thousands of Little Shop of Horrors fans out there – this is an absolute must!
Nick Wakeham
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