The Addams Family are back (a bit older) in hilarious new musical

THE Sainsbury Singers are presenting a suitably sinister show for Halloween.

The musical company will perform The Addams Family – A New Musical Comedy at the performing arts centre at Queen Anne’s School in Caversham next week.

Chairman Brian Bretney says: “Everyone will instantly recognise the characters and the people playing them are doing a fantastic job. The story is totally new, so people are in for a treat.”

Originally a comic strip in the New Yorker magazine written by Charles Addams, the oddball, old money family with distinctly macabre ways comprises patriarch Gomez, his beloved wife Morticia, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester and Grandma.

The family is joined by a butler, Lurch, Thing, a hand that scuttles about the place, and occasionally relatives such as Cousin Itt.

The Addams Family was a popular and long-running TV sitcom in the Sixties with feature films made in the Nineties.

Director Nick Brannam says: “It’s the Addams Family grown up. Wednesday is now 18 and has fallen in love with a boy called Lucas. The premise of the musical is very much La Cage aux Folles for a modern-day audience, with Wednesday wanting everyone to act ‘normal’ to meet the boy’s parents, Mal and Alice, which is a pun on the word ‘malice’. Hilarity, desperation and chaos ensue and it is just a laugh a minute.”

Dean Davis, who plays Fester, says: “Lucas brings his parents to meet the Addams Family in their home in the middle of Central Park. Mal doesn’t overly like the place that they’re in, or the Addams Family and you get that gist early on. Then things just flip on their head, with Lurch and Fester doing weird things and Grandma doing ultra-weird things.”

Jessica Wilkins, who plays Wednesday, adds: “And everyone is trying to keep it a secret from Morticia as Gomez doesn’t want her to find out. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve ever been involved in. Genuinely, it’s hilarious.”

Nick says: “The dinner scene with Grandma has been our sticking point in rehearsals because they have to try not to laugh but she always manages to make someone crack up.”

The show stays true to the characters we all know and love.

Nick says: “All the ensemble are dead ancestors, ranging from caveman all the way through to a Fifties housewife, and we have lots of special effects and many dance routines.

“It’s one of the weirdest props lists I’ve ever written. We have a lightbulb that goes into Fester’s mouth and magically lights up.

“We’re using the auditorium in a way that encompasses the audience and makes use of the staircases down the side.”

The rest of family are Steve Jewell as Gomez, Lucy Hutson as Morticia, Cath Hannan as Grandma and Jo Shannon-Little as Pugsley.

• The Addams Family — A New Musical Comedy takes place at Queen Anne’s Performing Arts Centre, Caversham, from Wednesday, October 25 to Saturday, October 28 at 7.30pm, with a Saturday matinée at 2.30pm. Tickets cost from £19 to £22. There is a bar and free parking. To buy tickets, visit sainsburysingers.org.uk