Edinburgh Fringe 2024
The Addams Family
The Talentz Ltd
Genre: Musical Theatre
Venue: Space on The Mile
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
The Talentz Ltd Youth Theatre Group come to The Space on The Mile at Niddry Street with a Stellar rendition of The Addams Familly The Musical
Review
The Addams Family at Space on The Mile is a fantastic show for all the family. The show follows Wednesday (the daughter of this spooky family) and how she attempts to bring a normal person in to the family – her new boyfriend Lucas. This leaves plenty of room for Gothic humour as there is such a hilarious juxtaposition between this characters normality and the Addams Families outright bizarre spookiness. Wednesday makes her father (Gomez) keep this boyfriend a secret from the mother character Morticia also which adds for more hilarity as this becomes a great struggle making for big laughs throughout.
First off it has to be said that this show seemed to be cast extremely well. All actors were young in age yet the calibre of acting was very high. It seemed as if every actor/actress was perfect for each role. The father character had the perfect Transylvanian Gothic voice and a spooky stunned expression pulled on his face employing exaggerated cartoon expressions which added to the humor. The mother character Morticia was also perfectly cast. It seems the actress had taken influence from those retro female comic gothic vampire figures such as Vampira in the way that she was often looking spookily up in to the sky behind the audience whilst talking which was very Gothic and humourous at the same time. The grandma character was also well acted as the actress would hunch and hobble around the stage just like a Gothic cartoon. Also there was elements of rocky horror when a very nice naive looking couple appeared at the Addams family mansion in the musical. It added to the humour because they looked very out of place in this Gothic house with the spooky family. The cast was all singing and dancing and seemed very well rehearsed. A cast of 20 odd actors all seamlessly performing synchronized dance moves throughout without mistake was no mean feat and commendable. The songs were also very enjoyable. musical and humourous. Songs featured morbid titles like “Death is Just Round the Corner” done with such Gothic irony the audience couldn’t help but laugh.
Whilst watching I couldn’t stop grinning throughout. The show was very funny, well cast and the acting was very impressive. They definitely nailed the tongue and cheek Gothic humour needed for this kind of show. The dancing was flawless and very in sync. The singing was also very impressive too although I would’ve loved to see this with live music as they did have backing tracks but it has to be said the fact that this was all acted by those young of age and the musical ability was very high.
Altogether an extremely entertaining show from the Talentz theatre group. I would highly recommend this show to anyone coming to Fringe. A great show for the whole family and very entertaining.
