LOCAL GIRL MAKES GOOD!
LA-based drag queen Vicky Vox is wowing the Brits in a new production of Little Shop of Horrors, playing – of all things – the crazed man-eating plant Audrey II.
The critics are gushing over her camptastic performance. Check out just a few of the raves below.
You’d be mad to miss this uplifting revival of Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Maria Aberg…
It’s like a witty botanical variant of the Rocky Horror Show but it has never soared, as it does here, into what looks like mad cross between the Day of the Triffids and RuPaul’s Drag Race….
… and prowling around in fishnets and skin-tight green spandex and growling out orders to “Feed me!” from glitter-encrusted lips, Vox is in complete, voluptuous command – a Mephistopheles who effortlessly exudes a filthy diva-style sense of danger.
Exuberant… savagely silly… the costume designs have to be seen to be believed…
…Here, Audrey II is no mere puppet (although at meal times there are plenty of green-clad stage hands waving tentacles). No, when she reaches full maturity, she is transformed into human shape – specifically the fierce and fabulous form of American drag queen Vicky Vox, who stalks the stage in killer heels, rainbow wig and skin-tight sequins, bellowing ‘Feed me’ in a voice like a Chicago house diva while spritzing her bits with a plant mister.
This gloriously fun, campy production is not to be missed…
Drag star Vicky Vox, best known in these parts for mega-viral parody “Boy is a Bottom”, delivers charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent to the role of alien plant Audrey II – a clever casting choice that adds a wonderful new layer to the show. Really, it’s hard to think of anyone better suited to the role of man-eating plant than a drag queen.
A glitter ball of care-free cruelty…Performers crank up the craziness in ever more outlandish costumes in Maria Aberg’s even darker take on the cult musical…
No costume is too zany, no performance too quirky, no singing too brassy or loud. Jemima Rooper and Marc Antolin charm as hapless lovers Audrey and Seymour, and Alan Menken’s trademark love song Suddenly Seymour positively glows.
The plant stands tall. Very tall. I won’t give away the secret, but let’s just say this particular plant has immaculately manicured green fingers…
This production is like you’ve never seen it before — gloriously succulent and deliciously sinister…
The Open Air Theatre’s revival is a welcomed, giddy distraction to the ongoing tedium that goes by the name of Brexit and the production garnered a fair amount of buzz due to the casting of a Drag Queen as Audrey II (in the place of a traditional puppet), flying in American star Vicky Vox (a former member of pop group DWV) to do the honours. Unsurprisingly, nobody knows how to make an entrance or pull focus quite like a Drag Queen, with Vox confidently prowling around the stage and resembling the love child of TOWIE’s Gemma Collins and a bag of Skittles, and her voice is the perfect fit to play the man-eating plant. Does this new theatrical device pay off? And then some!
Major kudos to director Maria Aberg for delivering what feels like a genuinely fresh take: plants are made from various toilet and kitchen utensils; grey tower blocks are wheeled about by the town’s homeless in shopping trollies and dumpsters; each costume drags the world from monochrome to technicolour. The best choice is to make Audrey II a person rather than a puppet. Not that the production completely eschews the technical opportunities; Scutt and Max Humphries have produced some great creature moments. But having drag superstar Vicky Vox deliver bratty, poison ivy, venus fly-trap realness as the sentient plant allows Aberg to make the production more dynamic.
In a clever bit of casting by director Maria Arberg, the charismatic, omnivorous plant Audrey II is no longer a puppet, but is played by the deliciously watchable American drag queen Vicky Vox.
Vox (inset) seduces and menaces in equal parts, as she patrols the stage and demands to be fed, transforming the action from static street scenes to flamboyant spectacle. Marc Antolin fits the role of dweeby Seymour like a glove while Matt Willis (of Busted fame) is suitably maniacal as the evil dentist boyfriend. The narrators Crystal, Ronnette, and Chiffon steal the limelight in nearly every scene.
Little Shop of Horrors runs at the Open Air Theater in Regent’s Park, London, until September 15; buy tickets with GO London
