If you like your musicals with a side of the surreal and a generous helping of ghoulish glamour, then The Addams Family at Birmingham Hippodrome delivers all that and more – wrapped in cobwebs, cloaked in innuendo and carried off with style.
Back on stage after two sell-out UK tours and a stint at the London Palladium, the beloved cartoon-turned-cultural-icon-turned-musical-comedy returns with a fresh injection of absurdity and affection. It’s a slick, thoroughly entertaining production that knows exactly what it is – a joyful embrace of the weird, the wonderful and the over-the-top.
The plot is delightfully daft: Wednesday Addams, the family’s doom-drenched darling, is in love. Worse still – Lucas, the object of her affections, is normal. As in, he wears chinos and says things like “neat.” Naturally, this sparks a crisis of loyalties and secrets, especially for Gomez, who finds himself caught between his daughter and wife Morticia. What follows is a gloriously awkward dinner with the boyfriend’s painfully straight-laced family, that jumps from farce to tenderness to complete chaos.
Ricardo Afonso is superb as Gomez – suave, expressive and utterly committed to every flourish of flamenco or furrowed brow – and his chemistry with Alexandra Burke’s statuesque Morticia is a highlight. In turn, she exudes poise and menace in equal measure, and proves herself as sharp with a look as she is with a line. Every inch the elegant matriarch, she is hypnotic to watch, gliding across the stage like a stylish spectre. Unsurprisingly, her vocals soar: smoky and rich with control and nuance, particularly in Just Around the Corner, where she ponders the cheerful inevitability of death.
Clive Rowe’s Uncle Fester is a scene-stealing delight – one minute he’s the oddball narrator, the next the show’s emotional anchor – and his affection for the moon (yes, the moon) is surprisingly touching. Lesley Joseph is a firecracker of one-liners and brings a wicked spark as the wonderfully unhinged Grandma, while Dickon Gough’s Lurch manages to raise laughs with little more than a grunt. The ensemble of ghostly ancestors also deserves credit and their presence give the show its pulse, moving through the scenes with infectious energy.
Yes, it leans heavily on innuendo, camp and comic timing. But beneath the theatrical trimmings and gags is something warm: a story about love, loyalty and letting go. Even if that love comes swaddled in cobwebs and delivered via a gothic power ballad.
The Addams Family isn’t trying to reinvent the musical because it’s too busy having fun. And that’s exactly why it works. It’s dark without being dreary, sweet without being saccharine, and self-aware enough to know that the best way to tell a twisted tale is with wit, a song and a dramatic swish of Morticia’s dress.
It never takes itself too seriously, yet still manages to carry emotional weight where it counts – a testament to the cast and direction that the show can veer from slapstick to sincerity without missing a beat. Macabre, musical and marvellously silly– what’s not to love?
The Addams Family is on at Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday July 12. For more information click here.
