It's a nifty piece of timing staging Little Shop of Horrors in St Valentine's week - for the little shop in question is a florists. However, one of the plants on sale is definitely not a romantic choice for a loved one.

Well, hello: Seymour, the lovelorn flower-shop assistant, in Little Shop of Horrors Beginning harmlessly as a rather zany little specimen, The Plant grows hugely and horribly. Nor is it particular about what or who it eats with its many teeth - fangs so numerous that no NHS dentist could possibly afford to maintain them and, talking of dentists, whatever happened to dentist Orin (Iain Sawbridge)? He appears, sings a very neat Elvis-style number, and promptly vanishes, leaving only a bloodstained surgical gown to tell the tale.

In this production at the Oxford Playhouse by the Basement student theatre company, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's musical is affectionately presented as a 1960s pastiche complete with three 'ba-boo-di-boop' backing singers, who croon along in almost every number.

These three (Sinead Russell, Ruth Collier and Clare Linney) are a knockout trio as they smoothly sneak in Ashman and Menken's sharp, period observations: "between our cocoa and bedtime at 9.15 we sit and watch Lucy on our 12-inch screen".

Flower shop assistant Charli Hendley also sings strongly in a production that, on opening night, was too laid-back and under-projected in the early scenes, robbing us of some good punchlines. There is strong support, however, from "business is lousy" flower shop owner Alex Thomas and his son-with-a-conscience Stuart Valentine.

Little Shop may not be the greatest musical ever written, but the Basement Theatre Company, working under director Cat Totty, nurture the show into a very satisfying evening's entertainment - and thanks to puppeteer Geoff Dallimore and plant voice Andrew Humphrey, you almost come to love that ghastly plant as well.

Little Shop of Horrors

Oxford Playhouse, Oxford

Until February 17

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