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The Addams Family


 On Friday 9th of June, I went and saw The Addams Family at Birmingham Hippodrome. This has been booked for months and one of the shows I was most excited about seeing this year and it surpassed my expectations. This has a cast full of stars we have Samantha Womack as Morticia Addams, Cameron Blakely as Gomez Addams, Les Dennis as Uncle Fester and the amazing Carrie Hope Fletcher as Wednesday Addams. This musical is set when Wednesday is 18 years old and has fallen in love with a normal guy in Lucas Beineke played by Oliver Ormson and they are engaged to be married. Lucas’s parents come over to visit and have dinner with the Addams Family in which chaos ensues and the repercussions from that dinner. It ends up being a lovely love story with a strange family.
I loved this musical, it was refreshing to see something completely new on stage not something that is a tour of a permanent show. The cast are incredible I was pleasantly surprised by Samantha Womack and Les Dennis they were brilliant. Cameron Blakely was incredible his vocals were amazing and he just fitted being Gomez. Carrie Hope Fletcher is the perfect Wednesday Addams it’s like this character was made for her, she steals the show when she sings Pulled. Her chemistry with Oliver Ormson as Lucas is amazing I’m routing for the couple throughout the whole play and their song Crazier Than You must be one of my favourites in the show even though all the songs are brilliant and very catchy. I loved all the relationships in this musical and how each were very different to the other you had Lucas and Wednesday who have a very intense relationship particularly from Wednesday, there’s Gomez and Morticia Addams who have been married for years and are still passionately in love and working on their relationship, then there is Mal and Alice Beineke who are Lucas’s parents who have lost the spark in their relationship and become sticks in the mud. Each couple explores their relationship throughout the musical and it’s very funny and enjoyable. It also explores the relationships of family particularly between Gomez and Wednesday which was lovely, Wednesday and Morticia which is typical mother daughter and then the relationship between Wednesday and her brother Pugsley who is jealous of Lucas. One of my other favourites in the show was Lurch he provided so much comedy value to the show and is one of the most underrated characters. All the ancestors are great and I like how each are from their own historical period and that they have some importance to the storyline. It truly is incredible that all this is fit into a 2-and-a-half-hour musical with a 20-minute interval.
I love Birmingham Hippodrome it is my local theatre to see all the big musicals that come around on tour. We got there quite early because my friend wanted some food and luckily because we are all Friends of the Hippodrome we get 10% at the Deli Bar so we got a discount when purchasing a programme from there as well as some snacks. They were also doing Addams Family cocktails which between 5:30-6:30 were 2 for £10 so we had the Dark Lady Bellini which was basically Prosecco and berries and it was lovely. I love when places take theming seriously and do little things like that to embrace what is going on. Our seats were in the Front Circle, row D on the end and I think I can honestly say I prefer sitting in the Circle to sitting in the Stalls because I feel like I’m at eye level with the stage and I can see everything that is going on. Once again 10/10 to the Hippodrome for being an amazing venue.

Full Disclosure, I loved this show so much it incorporates stuff from how people already know The Addams Family but presents it in a very fresh and funny way. I would love to see it again because it was that good. There is so much more I could say about this musical but I’m worried that that would make this a very long post. The Addams Family is running until November and is coming to a city near you (Link). I highly encourage you to see it and if you have seen it I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time

Stacey x
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