Tom recreates his experience of ‘Small Boutique of Terrors’

Tom asks if they can re-enact Little Shop of Horrors. When Paul asks if he was in it, Tom says he wasn’t, but when watching it as an 8-year-old, it had “fired off everything” in his brain.

For his recreation, Paul appears on stage, alongside a small potted plant, and Tom is sitting in the audience. As Paul’s character on stage sings to the plant, Tom appears mesmerised and delighted by the performance.

As a larger version of the plant says “Please, Paul more, give me plasma”, 8-year-old Tom laughs and says, “It’s so funny.” Tom himself then plays an even larger version of the plant, using a suitcase as its mouth, which begins to eat Paul on-stage, causing 8-year-old Tom to gasp.

Paul and the suitcase-headed plant end the show with a song and dance, while 8-year-old Tom in the audience gleefully claps along. He then turns to his father (played by Paul in a large wig), and says “Wow. This ‘thea-treh’ thing is amazing, Papa”, and sighing, before adding “I think I’ve been put on a different path in this lifetime.”

In the studio, Paul points out that, for legal reasons, the show depicted in the performance was definitely not Little Shop of Horrors but instead ‘Small Boutique of Terrors’.

Madeleine, Hayley, and Ben all share that they had performed in productions of Little Shop of Horrors while in high school. Ben says that he’d played the dentist, but he guesses that if he was in the production shown in Tom’s attempt, he would have been the podiatrist, or something. Tom clarifies that he would have been the orthodontist. Abby says she’s never been in the production, so Hayley suggests they should all do it together, and Jeremy says he can’t wait to see it.

Jeremy then asks Tom what it was about Little Shop of Horrors that had appealed to him, and Tom answers “Horror…” before Paul adds “Shops”.

Tom earns 4 points.

(Written by JoGo and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by JoGo & Will G and adjusted by David Fuller)