Theatre Review: The Addams Family

Words: Ian C Douglas
Wednesday 10 November 2021
reading time: min, words

They’re creepy and they’re kooky

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Did Charles Addams have any inkling back in 1938, when he first put pen to paper, that he was creating a brand that would be flourishing in 2021? After the newspaper cartoons, the TV series, the animations and the big screen releases, The Addams Family Musical was inevitable. A celebration of the macabre, the weird, the freakish and it just flapped into Nottingham on bats’ wings.

Life for the Addams is about to change. Wednesday has fallen in love. Worse, the object of her desires suffers from that incurable illness called ‘normal’. Yes, she’s fallen for someone from the sunny side of the street. The course of true love never runs smooth and this particular infatuation threatens to ruin family dynamics forever. Morticia is losing a daughter, Pugsley his favourite torturer. Uncle Fester is so worried he unleashes the ancestral ghosts from the family vault. Luckily, the ghosts happen to be nifty dancers. Meanwhile, Grandma is mixing a magic potion fit for a plot twist.

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As for the patriarch, Gomez, he is caught in the middle of all these machinations and forced to keep secrets. Where does his loyalties lie, with his wife or his daughter? And if that was not enough, Wednesday’s Romeo turns up on the haunted doorstep with his angry father and repressed mother in tow. Guess who’s coming for dinner! A recipe for disaster? We certainly hope so.

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The Addams Family Musical is a fun night of comedy, catchy songs and engaging dance routines. The stage is skilfully transformed into the Addams’ creepy mansion, with plenty of dry ice, long shadows, and shuttered windows. The cast all knock out engaging performances, but the plot never gets in the way of the music. Lurch has the audience in stitches without uttering a word but when he finally does, you’ll love it.

So, if you enjoy a night of laugh-out-loud jokes, song and dance and a love for the otherworldly, come along and click your fingers with the best of them. Older children may particularly enjoy the show.

The Addams Family plays at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal from Friday 5 November 2021 to Saturday 13 November 2021.

trch.co.uk

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