The Addams Family Musical
Worthing Pavilion Theatre
A Worthing Musical Theatre Company Production
Wednesday 16 – Saturday 19 September 2026
Directors: Matt Collins and Jojo O’Brien
Writers: Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman
Musical Director: Daniel Paine
Der der der der der, click click. Der der der der der, click click.
When that iconic music starts who couldn’t fail to succumb to that reflex and find themselves joining in? You just know you’re in for a treat, and this production from the Worthing Musical Theatre Company produces a whole lot of treats. In spades.
If you’re not of a ‘60s vintage (The Addams Family series was first screened on TV in 1964) you may well have seen a production of it in one of a myriad of formats since then. So unique and oh so popular, it seems we are still in love with this wonderfully weird but inexplicably winsome family. The Addams clan comprises the Living (though that could be debatable), the Dead, and the Undecided, who have one thing in common – they exist in a bizarre, macabre world of their own. They are Different, and that may possibly make them especially relevant in the world we occupy today. Certainly, parallels exist.
The Addams Family has always been a comedic piece, first devised by an American cartoonist, Charles Addams. Totally eccentric, delighting in the macabre and grotesque, their behaviour and language is the antithesis of the traditional wholesome American image, and yet their values are remarkably similar. Gomez, his wife Morticia and their children Wednesday and Pugsley, plus Grandma Addams and Uncle Fester are incredibly tightly knit, genuinely loving one another, albeit in a slightly off beat way, unconcerned that their graveyard talk and eccentric attitudes are not ‘normal’ to the outside world. They are content to live in their own darkly Gothic world with their extended family of (presumably long dead) Ancestors, plus the grunting monosyllabic Zombie-like butler Lurch (here deliciously played by Phil Davis), all oblivious to ‘normality’.
And so, the Worthing Musical Theatre Company has embarked on a brand new 2026 version of this long lived – and some long dead – comically macabre family with a new theme of Weirdly Bizarre Girl meets Traditionally Normal Boy, and they fall in love, followed by the dreaded arrangement of a ‘Meet the Family’ get together dinner.
When Act One opened I was slightly worried that the voices of ‘The Ancestors’ were not carrying sufficiently, there were around 20 or more of them all on stage together. However, from a slightly nervous start, (it was Opening Night after all) the whole cast bloomed within minutes, and then we were off. Emerging from the gates of a grave these various Ancestors are wearing a fabulous array of costumes which they presumably met their end in, before Dad Gomez appears. Jamie Hyde is wonderful as the downtrodden, wife pleasing husband of the assertive and disdainful Morticia (brilliantly played by Amy Marchant). They both love their daughter Wednesday (Jodie Makin) who has been raised as a princess of darkness, an independent feminist who has – to her parents’ horror – fallen for a boy from a respectable, ‘nice’ family. A dinner is arranged to meet Lucas, (perfectly portrayed by Adam Holland) but Gomez has to keep a secret from his intimidating wife – that their beloved daughter is already engaged.
What ensues is a deliciously dark scene of a candle lit table with both families – the Addams and the Beinekes – trying in vain to understand one another, but which eventually ends up in mayhem bordering on chaos. The boyfriend Lucas and his parents Alice (Hannah Williams) and Mal (Alex Brown) are sweetly indulgent of their bizarre hosts until a game of Full Disclosure is played. Alice has drunk from a spiked chalice and is released from her introverted bemused persona, morphing into a startlingly outspoken wife. With Issues. Hannah Williams delivers a stunning performance, and an incredible vocal solo, before drunkenly strutting across the table, then finally collapsing into a heap.
There are stand out performances from Amy Marchant as Morticia, Hannah Williams as Alice Beineke and Ryan Etherington as Uncle Fester, their solo vocals are truly a delight. The whole cast – and there are a lot of them! – seem to be having a ball, and their performance on Opening Night was riveting. I will not forget some of the hilarious dialogue which was threaded throughout this high value production, notably (I paraphrase) : ‘You’re a tool, so go sleep in the shed’, from Alice, and ‘Your mother is still living with us’. ‘My mother? I thought she was your mother’ from Gomez. So funny.
What a fabulous revival of a gloriously weird family and what a great production the Worthing Musical Theatre Company delivers. They are a charity, and so deserving of high praise.
As Phil Davis the Chairman says “Remember, normal is overrated”.
Hear hear to that.
Approx 2 hours 20 mins inc 20 mins interval
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Reviewer: Gill Ranson