Theatre Review: The Addams Family Musical

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Published by Glasgowist.

Against a misty backdrop of gothic manors, creepy phantoms, and thunderstorms, The Addams Family Musical cast bring a new brand of macabre comedy to everyone’s favourite misfit family.

Originally created by cartoonist Charles Addams in the 1930s, the Addams Family is described as a satirical inversion on the idealised family unit. With an edge of aristocracy, the clan are thrilled by all things grim and ghoulish as it appears they don’t know or simply don’t care that ‘normal’ people find them strange and disturbing.

Appearing in cartoons in The New Yorker, the Addams Family were then immortalised in a live-action television series in the 1960s. Several adaptations of the characters were made including the hugely successful 1991 film The Addams Family and the 1993 sequel Addams Family Values starring Angelica Houston, Christina Ricci, Christopher Lloyd, and Raul Julia.

From the writers of mutli award-winning hit musical Jersey Boys with music and lyrics by Tony Award nominated Andrew Lippa, The Addams Family Musical makes its UK stage debut this autumn. Showing at Glasgow’s famous Kings Theatre from October 10-14, the musical comedy adaptation puts an acidic new twist on the Addams cocktail of the gothic mixed with glee.

The musical features a star-studded cast including EastEnders’s Samantha Womack as the hypnotic and seductive Morticia Addams, Les Dennis as Uncle Fester, Cameron Blakely as the brilliantly comical and animated Gomez, and Carrie Hope Fletcher, a revelation, as Wednesday Addams.

The story begins with Wednesday keeping a dark secret. Contrary to Wednesday’s typical morbid persona, she falls in love with her polar opposite, a preppy jock with a clean-cut look, respectable parents, and no interest in torture with red hot pokers or shooting innocent targets with crossbows.

Fletcher seamlessly strikes the balance between Wednesday’s newfound soft side and the ice-cold demeanour, dark humour, and deadpan wit which makes her everyone’s favourite princess of darkness. As well as capturing the essence of the original character, Fletcher’s spellbinding vocals make her punk rock royalty.

As Wednesday’s secret grows bigger, she confides in Gomez, suspecting that her mother, the matriarch of the family, will disapprove of the unorthodox match. The bulk of the action takes place during an awkward, tantalising, and hilarious dinner as the Addams Family make an attempt to appear normal in front of Wednesday’s boyfriend Lucas and her sickly sweet potential in-laws. This task proves difficult considering a disembodied hand tends to walk along the dinner table, dead ancestors rise from their crypts, and characters in paintings take on a life of their own in the Addams’s haunted castle.

The hilarity of show is also provided by familiar faces including Pugsley, Grandma, Lurch, and the lovable Uncle Fester.

The making of a show starring such iconic characters is rooted in the set and costume design. Featuring Tim Burton style palettes of mystic purple, dusty chocolate brown, and blood red coupled with spiralling staircases, gothic landscapes, murky shadows, and vivid contrasting costumes, the aesthetic of the show is nigh on perfect.

This hilarious Halloween show has something for everybody and is suitable for the whole family from children to adults and even those beyond the grave.

If you like dark comedy, theatrics, and all things gothic, The Addams Family Musical is a must see this October.

The Addams Family is at the King’s Theatre until 14th October.

Sophie’s Choice: Film Preview for Autumn/Winter 2015

Published by Student Rag.

Here is my pick of the best films coming out in the coming months. Make sure you pop down to the cinema and snuggle up with some popcorn and a Tango Iceblast and see…

Legend – Certificate 18 – Release Date: September 9

Following the superb telling of the lives of Kray twins portrayed by brothers Martin and Gary Kemp in the 1990 film, the story of the infamous identical twins and gangland figures Reginald and Ronald Kray is being interpreted in film once again but, this time, with a twist.

Rather than having brothers or, better yet, identical twins, playing the dangerous duo, the writer and director of Legend, Brian Heldgeland, has instead opted to have one actor alternating between both roles. Enter: Tom Hardy as the notorious gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

The British crime thriller is based on the book ‘The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins’ by John Pearson which tells the chronicle of the deadly brothers’ intense relationship and childhood up until their reign of terror over East End London in the 1960s and their downfall.

Legend will focus on the life of Reggie Kray and his struggle to control his brother Ronnie’s psychotic and violent tendencies while maintaining the Krays’ mobster status, dodging the police and dealing with their enemies.

For fans of The Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarface and other gangland epics, Legend should be top of your list of films to see at the cinema this month.

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The Visit – Certificate 15 – Release Date: September 9

‘The Visit’, an American horror comedy film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, follows siblings Rebecca and Tyler as their mum leaves them with their grandparents for the first time. But as time goes on, the brother and sister begin to notice that there’s something strange and grandma and grandpa as they are warned not to leave their rooms after 9.30pm but when they do, they find sweet ol’ grandma frantically scratching a door until her hands are bloody, as you do.

As they plead with their mum on video chat to come and get them, they are met with the typical “you’re imagining it, everything is fine” horror movie response and have to endure their grandparents increasingly disturbing behaviour. Both horror and comedy buffs will love this film!

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Victor Frankenstein – Certificate PG-13 – Release Date: 4 December

‘Frankenstein’ is a legendary tale that has been retold and adapted in film over and over again. But, this time around, American filmmakers have interpreted contemporary adaptations of Mary Shelley’s globally renowned 1818 novel and shifted the perspective from the doctor to his helper. Starring James McAvoy as the title character and Daniel Radcliffe as the doctor’s faithful helper, the film is told from Igor’s perspective, showing the troubled young assistant’s dark origins and motives, his loyal but conflicted relationship with the young medical student Victor Frankenstein and his eyewitness account of how Frankenstein managed to animate death back into life and succeed in his mission to create a man after his own image.

The pair’s unethical experiments eventually come back to haunt them as they are hunted down by monsters and police alike as they lose control of the creation they ignited with life.

The tale warning of the dangers of scientific experimentation and ‘playing God’ is a timeless classic that always seems to contain elements that are relevant to modern science and life today. This revamped take on a gothic horror classic will no doubt by a huge hit with Frankenstein fanatics.