It takes plant-based diet to a whole new level: the hungry triffid with a penchant for human flesh and blood.

Audrey II is a starving specimen with a voracious appetite whose growth corresponds with the cast’s disappearance in the gruesome film and stage cult comedy classic Little Shop of Horrors.

The show has been through many guises, starting life in 1960 as a film by director Roger Corman then adapted for the stage by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, opening off-Broadway in 1982. A second film directed by Frank Oz came out in 1986, cementing the Faustian tale in the American canon.

This latest high energy version at Theatre by the Lake under director Lotte Wakeham brought some much-needed spring sunshine to Keswick, led by the harmonious trio of street urchins Crystal (Zweyla Mitchell dos Santos), Chiffon (Janna May) and Ronette (Chardai Shaw, in her professional theatre debut) who doo-wopped, played and danced their way through the action.

Musknik’s flower shop on Skid Row, New York, is the focus of the grisly goings on where nerdy orphan Seymour Krelborn finds love with his co-worker, Audrey, who is caught in a violent relationship and dreams of escaping to an idyllic house in the country, movingly expressed by

Laura Jane Matthewson’s in Somewhere That’s Green (she deserved top marks too for maintaining the Bronx accent almost throughout).

With business wilting Mr Musknik (Andrew Whitehead) threatens to close the shop until Audrey suggests Seymour brings forth the unusual plant he has been nurturing in the back to put in the window to attract customers.

Great British Life: Matthew Ganley as Orin and Oliver Mawdsley as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at Theatre by the Lake Matthew Ganley as Orin and Oliver Mawdsley as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at Theatre by the Lake (Image: Pamela-Raith-Photography)

It works until Seymour accidentally discovers that keeping the initially cute, Kermit-esque plant alive requires first, fresh blood, then, as it grows, more substantial sustenance. You know it’s not going to end well when Seymour asks: “What do you want me to do, slit my wrists?” and the plant, reminiscent of Tom Hardy’s Venom, responds: “Mmmm”.

Hungry for success and the promise of a better life, Seymour must keep the potted predator’s appetite sated. Once it demands mansize meals, Audrey’s abusive boyfriend – demon dentist Orin Scrivello – is the obvious candidate. Matthew Ganley had great fun playing the oral offender, though, frankly, Cumbria can’t afford to lose any more dentists whether gobbled by a green monster or by any other route.

As Audrey II grows in stature so does its voice and, boy, did that villainous vegetable have soul, thanks to Anton Stephans’s vocals.

Through multiple songs under the musical direction of Gabrielle Ball with most of the cast playing too, and increasingly madcap action, Oliver Mawdsley managed to grow Seymour from blithering idiot through chivalrous romantic to murderous conspirator and sacrificial hero horrified at the monster he had created.

Matthew Heywood gamely handled the puppetry of the plant, although its ravenous devouring was a little clunky and needed Nic Farman’s eerie lighting to maintain the horror.

Little Shop is the latest successful co-production by Theatre by the Lake in partnership with Octagon Theatre Bolton, Hull Truck Theatre and New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. With a winning formula of multi-talented casts of actor musicians, it is a growing team effort that has already brought some outstanding shows to Keswick. Each one they feed us leaves us hungry for more.

Coming up at Theatre by the Lake...Northanger Abbey and Keswick Amateur Operatic Society's The Sound of Music