The Addams Family – School Edition

The Addams Family have been around since they first appeared as a comic strip in the New Yorker in 1938, and have woven themselves into Western culture as the funny kooky and spooky family who live in a haunted looking mansion. They have had various incarnations since: from a black and white television series in the 1960’s which only ran for two seasons but was repeated through the 1970’s so an entire generation grew up humming the theme tune and clicking their fingers, to various films with mega movie stars. This new musical was written in 2010 so predates the resurgence and fascination with Wednesday as a character yet has Wednesday as the focal point for the story.

The stage was wide but not deep, with shade drawn trees against a black backdrop at the back. For each scene different coloured lighting states on the trees added mood to the scene, and the effect on the trees is really clever, given them a 3D look which adds an interesting depth. There is a massive moon lit up stage right, the reason subsequently becoming clear, which was a lovely visual, and a great technical achievement for the additional image at the end. The props were all very effective including the ‘torture’ lever in the stage floor, and an old fashioned telephone on a stand. The staging worked well, although it was difficult for the whole audience to see the scenes that were dropped down in front of the stage. Moving two really long tables on stage could have been smoother, but children as set pieces such as paintings or a lamp stand with a lamp shade on their head was brilliant: simple and effective.

The costumes for entire cast of 30 were gorgeous. Gomez had the drawn on moustache which is actually how some filmed productions did it so a nice homage. Gomez frilly shirt, Morticia’s dress which looked exactly right, Wednesday’s black dress and shocking yellow one, the “normal” family attire for the Beineke family, Pugsley’s trademark striped top as well as Uncle Fester’s trademark entire look of bald head and dark round the eyes. Makeup was super for all of them, the wig on Grandma was almost bigger than she was and utterly brilliant.

It’s a wonderfully written show, with clever lyrics and catchy songs. However, this School Edition is a hugely ambitious undertaking for the principal cast, including some quite young children with an enormous amount of lines to learn, plus it’s incredibly long. They did really well with all their lines, although there was some hesitation around the start of some songs with the result that they started mid-way through a phrase. Using backing tracks meant that the audience were aware where there were gaps and the actors looked uncertain which unnerves the audience. There were some interesting fumbles but of course the audience were extremely forgiving and it’s possible this was a result of first night nerves, however it could be that certain elements would have benefitted from a few more rehearsals.

There were some lovely moments in the show, the performance of the song with the unforgettable lyric “death is just around the corner” was super, including the tap dancing character of Death (Symon Le Gill). Jesse Wilkes as Uncle Fester oozed confident charm and impressively started a solo song A Cappella in the correct key without even a starting note. The harmony between him and the Moon played by Cerys Morris was utterly gorgeous and pitch perfect. Poppy Widdowson playing Gomez showed some great characterisation in some moments, however she spoke so quickly combined with the character Spanish accent it was difficult to catch all of what she was saying. Her singing was sometimes hesitant, which was a shame, as her voice was lovely and she sang beautifully. Meredith Creffield played a great all American mom as Alice Beineke and her transformation after the potion was super. She and Myles Gillon playing Lucas had particularly good American accents. Scarlet Boxall was a lovely Morticia with great stage presence, and her duet with Gomez had really good choreography which they performed well. Mia Stillman as Wednesday did a brilliant job of being the central character especially so young, great characterisation, with a really lovely singing voice.

There are lots of one liners for adults in the audience to appreciate in this show which is hard for children to perform, although Jesse Wilkes as Fester brought some of these out. There are also all sorts of different styles of musical numbers, from rock to salsa, from ballads to tango: a big ask for any cast. Well done to everyone involved in this production, it’s a mammoth undertaking, and the children looked like they were having fun, making their families and supporters in the audience very proud indeed.

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