Skip to main content

Review of The Addams Family Musical: School Edition (Team Thing) at the Cripps Hall Theatre, Northampton

This weekend I found myself back at Cripps Hall Theatre to see the alternate cast performance of The Addams Family Musical, and it was every bit as entertaining as the first. For my Team Cousin IT review click here, but for now, let us talk about Team Thing.

Leading the cast in this version was Ben Mineards, and he presented an accomplished performance bringing a delightful physicality to the role of the head of the house Gomez and dealt some brilliant comic timing. Eleanor Butt played with a slick deadpan nature his wife Morticia, and I have to say her vocal skills extremely impressed me. Her singing was strong, confident and was one of the strongest singers across both productions.

I really enjoyed both Violet Clarke as Wednesday and Mia Leader as Pugsley. They provided great humour and worked excellent as the sibling partnership. Robson Scott meanwhile was a delightfully enthusiastic performer as Uncle Fester and had great charm which helped in this characters role as the narrator of the show as well.

Jacob Luck provided great lurking presence as Lurch, and his shinning moment was an excellent moment of remaining in character and delivering that nice unexpected moment in the second act.

While I didn’t refer to the production itself in great detail in my first review, here I must comment on the excellent direction of the piece from Katy Batchelor, keeping so many youngsters in check, while maintaining control on stage, I imagine it not a small feat.

Also, the excellent and clear choreography from Fiona Luck brought more visible control on stage, and showed the huge talent and dedication from the young performers. Finally, Rod Iliffe as musical director brought excellent music to the shows with the ten strong orchestra.

Both teams on The Addams Family Musical did the NMTC Youth Society proud and provided two excellent days of entertainment.

Fun entertaining, and deliciously dark comic fun.
⭐⭐⭐½


Performance reviewed: Sunday 10th April 2022 (matinee) at the Cripps Hall Theatre, Northampton.

The Addams Family: School Edition ran  until Sunday 10th April at the Cripps Hall Theatre and details of the group can be found at https://www.northamptonmusicaltheatrecompany.co.uk/youth/

The Addams Family is an NMTC YOUTH SOCIETY PRODUCTION

Production photos: Ashleigh Standage


Popular posts from this blog

Review of The Bodyguard at Milton Keynes Theatre

The 1992 film The Bodyguard , starring Kevin Costner and marking the acting debut of singing megastar Whitney Houston, was a standard romantic thriller, greatly enhanced by Houston's presence and a cascade of big musical numbers. Surprisingly, it took twenty years to make the transition to the stage. Premiering in London in December 2012, just ten months after Houston's death, the show has since become a massive global success. Now it arrives at Milton Keynes Theatre again as part of its fourth UK tour in just thirteen years. The Bodyguard sees former Secret Service agent turned bodyguard, Frank Farmer, hired to protect an Academy Award-nominated actress and music superstar, Rachel Marron, from a stalker. Between Farmer's duties and Marron's career, something inevitably builds between the two amid music and dancing aplenty. Taking the leads on this tour are Sidonie Smith as Rachel and Adam Garcia as Frank. Smith has appeared in The Bodyguard before, as a walk-in in a p...
Read more

Review of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Milton Keynes Theatre

There have been numerous productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's groundbreaking musical since it first appeared in 1968 and opened in the West End in 1973. One might wonder if there is still room for another tour. However, judging by the packed audience in Milton Keynes Theatre for the opening night of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , much interest remains for this show. Also, with this production first seen at The London Palladium in June 2019, and with a few production elements altered, Joseph still has, after all those years, the room to change and evolve. However, the question is, does this change help or hinder the show's history? For those unfamiliar with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it tells the story of Joseph, Jacob's favourite son, in a lighthearted and musical style that jumps between various genres. Joseph's brothers are somewhat envious of him, leading to them selling him into slavery to an Egyptian nobleman. As for ...
Read more

Review of Breaking the Code at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Breaking The Code , the opening play in the new Made in Northampton season at Royal & Derngate, is a surprisingly old and rarely seen play. Written in 1986 by Hugh Whitemore, it tells the story of legendary codebreaker Alan Turing, a man who, in the 1980s, when this play first appeared, was relatively unknown. The years since the origin of this play have been good for Turing, with his life's work finally getting the recognition it deserves, and also, very much what this play centres on, a recognition of the horrific life and end that Turing had as a result of dealing with the laws of the day. Breaking the Code has seen life before on the stage of the Royal, as back in 2003, Philip Franks took to the role of Turing in a very well-received production. So, what of this brand new version directed by the Royal & Derngate's artistic director Jesse Jones? Does it live up to Turing's legend? That is an unquestionable yes with no machines needed to crack the class behind thi...
Read more