Trip to Addams Family

On Thursday 10th July, myself, Fran, Jill and Sharon took 8 students to the Birmingham Hippodrome for a Theatrical Makeup and Dance trip, to see The Addams Family Musical. The sun was shining bright on this day, so I think we were all glad to be sat in the cool, dark theatre. As the show begun, we all sat in our seats anticipating the famous Addams Family ‘da da da da, click click, da da da da, click click’, and we were not disappointed. Sure enough, the majority of the audience couldn’t contain their excitement and were soon clicking along in time to the theme tune, with Thing. He appeared twirling his wrist and clicking his fingers through the set, but after this he didn’t feature as much as I’d hoped, which was a shame because his role is so iconic. 

The opening song When You’re an Addams, was my favourite. It was the perfect introduction to each of the characters, and was particularly catchy – I’m singing it in my head whilst writing this blog! It might be hard to imagine the Addams Family singing and dancing in a musical theatre show, but the lyrics and choreography are so well thought out that I think it adds another layer to the characters, by exaggerating their quirkiness. 

To much surprise, Wednesday Addams wasn’t sporting the two long plaits, as we all picture her to have, but instead rocked a short and spikey pixie cut, which I actually think suited her - she reminded me of a young Winona Ryder from the 1988 version of Beetlejuice. I would say Wednesday was the strongest singer vocally, and I felt at ease listening to her performance, especially her solo Pulled. She had the perfect balance of evil, combined with her new found love for all things beautiful and lovely. The show follows her new relationship with Lucas Beineke, who had recently proposed without the blessing of either sets of parents. It turned out that neither Wednesday nor Lucas knew exactly what they were getting themselves in to. 

A firm favourite was Uncle Fester; his comic timing was spot on, and got most of the laughs throughout the show. For any Tracy Beaker fans out there, he was played by Duke, the dumping ground cook, (Clive Rowe), and we even managed to spot him coming out of stage door at the end of the show, despite his best efforts to be in disguise!

I had high expectations for Alexandra Burke who played Morticia, but I wouldn’t say she was necessarily the star of the show, as she is advertised. Morticia has a mysterious aura, with a dark sense of humour, and is fiercely loyal towards her family, so I expected this passionate, captivating, sophisticated energy to fill the stage, but I wasn’t convinced by Burke’s portrayal. I don’t think she lived up to the characterisation that Anjelica Huston played so well in the 1991 film version. 

Gomez, Pugsley and Grandma were exactly how you’d imagine them, and all had their moment to shine. They were all perfectly strange, and actively pretended to be ‘normal’, which resulted in scaring away the Beineke’s over a family dinner, with the help of the ghostly ensemble cast creeping around in the background. This all went hand in hand with the unusual behaviour of Lurch, a giant butler who growled as a greeting. His towering, slow moving presence only contributed to the shows macabre humour, and we were lucky enough to eventually hear his booming, deep voice as he sang in the closing song. 

If you’re a fan of the Addams family and their peculiar ways, I think this show would be an extremely enjoyable watch. I think the show captured the family’s eccentric way of life, their collective love of death and how completely unaware they are that people find them bizarre or frightening. I would definitely go again! - Courtney