4 STARS, Woking Theatre Sept 26-30. Look who’s just moved into the neighbourhood! Samantha Laurie gives The Addams Family musical a big thumbs up
Matt Martin
“Do you have a little girls’ room?”
“We did, but we had to let them go.”
Packed full of cracking one-liners from Jersey Boys’ writers, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with a soaring Latin tango heavy score from Andrew Lippa, America’s most beloved family are back in this lavish new touring musical.
It’s cheesy and story-light, but boy is it fun. All the familiar characters from the 1960s cult TV show and subsequent films are here: Gomez (the Spanish gypsy king father played with awe-inspiring energy by Cameron Blakely), Morticia (Samantha Womack from Eastenders), Uncle Fester (with Scott Paige standing in for an unwell Les Dennis), even the cadaverous Lurch (Dickon Gough).
The story is simple: teenage goth daughter Wednesday has graduated from tormenting her younger brother Pudsley, and has fallen in love with a regular boy, Lucas, who she met when she crossbowed a pigeon to his feet whilst he was out walking in Central Park. Now, with marriage in the air, she wants to invite his parents over to dinner, and she needs her oddball family to make a show of normal for the night.
It’s all a big shock for the family - where's the fun in being normal? Worse still, Wednesday’s passion is making her downright cheery. When she appears for dinner in a yellow dress, mum Morticia remonstrates: “People who wear bright colours have no inner life or imagination.”
Putting in a fine performance as Wednesday is 26-year-old Carrie Hope Fletcher. Fresh from her success as Éponine in Les Miserable, she brings with her a huge social media fan base – there are crowds of youngsters each night at the stage door. Her depiction of a confused and angry teenager falling in love is believable and warm.
Matt Martin
Indeed, the most moving relationship of the show is that of Wednesday and her father. His soulful “Wednesday’s Growing Up” is tender and honest, and the gentle teasing humour between the two has more warmth than the lustful amour of Gomez and his somewhat distant Morticia.
The script is fast and furious, full of corpse-gags and occasional glimpses of something deeper: “Life is a tightrope walk, my child, and at the other end is your coffin,” is Morticia’s maternal advice to her sleep-troubled child.
Musically too, there’s lots going on: vaudeville turns from Uncle Fester, Broadway glam from Morticia, and even a fine operatic display from Charlotte Page as Lucas’ mum, Alice. The finger-clicking overture of “When You’re an Addams” from the original show is a reminder of the staying power of a brand that has been around for over half a century.
But it’s the Latin rhythms you’ll come away whistling. Full company numbers like the foot-tappingly catchy Full Disclosure and the big tango finale, Move Towards the Darkness are hard to get out of your head. My favourite: the marvellously upbeat (Death is) Just Around The Corner.
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