Since Timothy Sheader took over the Open Air Theatre in 2007 the venue has become London’s most reliable regenerator of classic musicals. The roll call of hits includes Crazy For You, Hello, Dolly!, Into the Woods, The Sound of Music and last year Leonard Bernstein’s On The Town which might have been better timed if they had waited a year for the centenary of his birth.

Quite why it was thought the time is right to revival Howard Ashman (book and lyrics) and Alan Menken’s pastiche of the American doo-wop pop is not immediately clear. Tom Scutt’s monochrome design of depressed New York, a city scape of papermache decay may be meant to evoke the New York of 1982 when the show first opened — dirty, dangerous and best known for going bankrupt. Or perhaps it is meant to suggest a moral bankruptcy of New York under Trump. Which ever is true, the big idea in Maria Aberg’s terrific production is that the carnivorous star of the musical — a man-eating plant called Audrey — is played by American drag artist Vicky Vox. And it works brilliantly and hilariously well.

The glittery and coiffured Vox not only dominates the stage but anyone with her grasp. In her own endearing way, Vox embodies the man-eating essence of the character more memorably than any of the puppets and remote controlled contraptions that have made for productions of the musical in the past.

Besides her glittery girdle she gets great support from Marc Antolin whose Seymour may have the body of a beefcake but is pure nebbish dweeb from the neck up. Jemima Rooper as the lovelorn Audrey is also terrific as is Forbes Masson’s yiddisher flowerhsop owner Mr Mushnik (best customer the large Shivah family who keep on dying).

With Matt Willis’s sadist dentist this is a well drilled (geddit?) evening of song and dance and is as gore-ish as it is Jewish.