The singing is strong and the killer plant has a delightful touch of pantomime dame, but some of the schlock comic elements are slow growers

Ever since the extraterrestrial botanical monster named Audrey II first landed on film as a B-movie, its story’s stage and screen iterations have fed off each other, metabolising from a black-and-white crime caper in 1960 to an off-Broadway musical, then transposed back to film in the cult schlock horror movie of 1986.

This production captures Alan Menken’s exuberant, rock’n’roll sound in songs such as Skid Row (Downtown) and Suddenly, Seymour, while the killer plant at Mushnik’s florist shop, which feeds on human blood, has a delightful touch of the pantomime dame about it.

The staging on Georgia Lowe’s circular set is often lit up by a horticultural, gremlin-y green light but the schlock and comic macabre elements are slow growers, like the plant at the heart of the drama.

Under the direction of Amy Hodge, it is updated to modern day in its look. This clashes with Howard Ashman’s book and lyrics, whose references to Betty Crocker and “big” (12 inch) TV screens feel like anachronisms. It is all the more unmooring when set beside a modern-day reference to a fulfilment centre from which the florist shop sends packages to customers.