Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, July 27

UK Tour: For tour dates, visit https://www.theaddamsfamily.co.uk

Charles Addams’ family of ghoulish black and white cartoon characters get the Broadway treatment in this witty, well-designed musical currently touring the UK, it’s just a shame that the songs are so pedestrian.

The original Broadway version of the show opened in 2010 with Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth respectively as Gomez and Morticia, and it ran for a respectable 20 months. I can’t help but think that this was primarily down to the audience’s goodwill in wanting to see more of their favourite Addams characters, as popularised in the 1964-66 TV series and the Barry Sonnenfeld movies of the early 90s.

As the show opens we see that goth girl Wednesday (Carrie Hope Fletcher) is hopelessly in love with a regular lad and wants to bring his folks round to meet her family. It’s an age-old plot device that’s been mined many times before (I immediately think of The Rocky Horror Show and La Cage Aux Folles) where a conservative couple are introduced to a more liberal bunch and end up freeing their inhibitions. Gomez makes a mistake in not sharing a secret with his wife (former EastEnders regular Samantha Womack) and Uncle Fester (a joyful turn from Les Dennis) falls in love with the moon… and that’s about it.

For sheer production values this show scores big points. The modular haunted house set, complete with grand staircase, banqueting table and creaking crypt gates, and Harry Potter-style moving portraits, is very impressive. There’s also a big orchestra in the pit, swelling every time a character bursts into song… and that’s a part of the problem. There’s too many songs. They are frequently used when dialogue would suffice – the book is full of zingy one-liners – but sometimes it feels like here is a song because it’s a musical and I want to sing about a thing.

Les Dennis’ love song to the moon is very sweet and even cheekily throws in some of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, but it, like so many of the songs in the libretto are just perfunctory. They aren’t catchy, they just serve the purpose as songs. The cast are great, and it’s clear that Hope Fletcher and Cameron Blakely are veterans from Les Mis, knocking their songs – the lyrics of which must be in shouty CAPITAL LETTERS – out of the park. Womack’s Morticia makes the least impact musically, all chiselled cheekbones and slinky black dress, instead leaving the real heavy lifting to the WestEnders.

Verdict: I genuinely think I’d have preferred this as a straight play with musical interludes. It’s witty and fun, but is so desperate to justify itself as a musical that it forgets what makes a really good show tune. Creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky, average and mildly diverting. Great effort and intentions that are hobbled by such a clunky, perfunctory libretto. 6/10

Nick Joy

For tour dates, visit https://www.theaddamsfamily.co.uk