The Addams Family: Musical Comedy - UK Tour

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Tue 09 May 2017 - Sat 04 Nov 2017

Starting the show with Vic Mizzy's iconic theme song, with its four notes and finger clicks, the ghoulish Addams family is famous and has been present in popular culture for over 80 years. Starting as a strip comic in the 1930s, it is perhaps more known from its TV series in the 1960s and 70s and the feature films in the 1990s, with an animated series and a video game soon to follow. In 2010, it debuted as a musical on Broadway and had a run of 722 performances. Now, the hit The Addams Family Musical is premiering in Edinburgh and is set to tour the UK and Ireland from April to November this year.



Directed by Matthew White, this musical presents a slightly different view of the Addams family, because Wednesday (Carrie Hope Fletcher) is all grown up. To her parent's horror, she has invited her boyfriend and his parents (the Beineke family) over for dinner and when your family is the Addams, her request for them to act 'normal' is going to yield interesting results. For their part, the Beineke family are presented as the wholesome American family from Ohio, living the American dream of a having a house with a white picket fence. They are (in the eyes of the Addams family) disturbingly normal, but they too have their secrets.

The set is dynamic, and the versatility Diego Pitarch has created with his design is impressive. With changing portraits and moving staircases, most of the action takes place inside the Addams's family house, but the set seamlessly transforms into central park, a graveyard, and the gates of the Addams estate. Sound effects and use of lighting work in tandem to the delivery of the actors' lines, often to great comic (or spooky) effect.



The show is humorous throughout with many topical jokes and clever puns. Cameron Blakely as Gomez is especially good in the show with great comedic delivery, lamenting that "Wednesday will be Thursday before you know it" at one point. The relationship between Wednesday and her father is the most interesting part of the show, grounding the otherwise lavish performance. Compared with the rest of the cast, Samantha Blakely's Morticia leaves something to be desired, but overall the cast all deliver stunning vocal performances and perfectly executed choreography.

The Addams Family musical provides everything you would expect from the Addams famil, and although some of the tropes are predictable, the show is worthy of the standing ovation it received and is a must-see for any musical lover.

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!date 09/05/2017 -- 04/11/2017
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