The Addams Family - did the musical pull me in a new direction?

★★★

It’s just a dinner, what could possibly go wrong?

The Addams Family, photo by Pamela Raith

Well, now you’re asking.

When the crossbow-firing Wednesday Addams (Lauren Jones) falls head over heels for normal guy Lucas Beineke (Jacob Fowler), the two force their families to meet at the Addams’ spooky Central Park house ahead of announcing their secret engagement.

The real question is, whose family is scarier? The self-declared Kooky Addams, with matriarch Morticia (Alexandra Burke) and adoring Gomez (Ricardo Afonso) overlooking their unruly band of oddballs, or the yellow-wearing, sentence-rhyming, stale-married Beinekes?

Diego Pitarch's gothic set explores a tall, crooked, cold house, furnished with a dining table, a chaise lounge, and a variety of torture devices. In the background, a smiling moon observes in a clear night sky speckled with stars. With relatives (or are they?) lurking at every corner - Lesley Joseph plays the kinky grandma too reliant on the herbal stuff, Dickon Gough is the mostly-silent and slow-moving butler Lurch, and Nicholas McLean tumbles with boundless energy as the irritated kid brother Pugsley - the only place for privacy is two balconies where our star-crossed lovers conspire.

But there’s nothing about this plot, written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, that’s snap snappy. Andrew Lippa's mostly forgettable tunes all blend into one, the wry lyrics lost in the sound mix, Andrew Hilton's band powering on. Though Kara Lane does deliver an operatic act one ender.

Clive Rowe’s weirdly endearing Fester breaks the fourth wall as a soppy narrator who has apparently captured all of the family’s ancestors in the human world until true love conquers all. It’s a flimsy excuse to make way for a Vaudevillian ensemble of dancers.

Luckily, they look the part. An uncredited make-up artist has carved hollow cheek bones and outlined eyes, accentuated Morticia’s sultry lips, and made Wednesday familiar to anybody who has been a goth (phase or not).

Fans of Charles Addams' original characters won't be disappointed. Burke is excellently stoney-faced and straight-talking, her eyes difficult to catch. As her husband, Afonso is a suitably soppy labrador, his jitters making way for some brilliant comic timing. When they tango (choreography by Alistair David), their necks are as straight as the pinstripes on Gomez’s suit, poker straight hair cascading down her back, their passion reaching Paris. But their time together on stage is fleeting, their songs not big enough to show off their massive voices.

It is, however, Rowe’s Fester and his love affair with the moon that steals the show. Jones, even without the signature black plaits, offers the perfect dose of teen angst.

Ultimately, director Matthew White allows the numbers to bog down the little action there is (a mysterious game that turns out to only be sharing a truth), and its consequences; relationships rising from the dead and others knocking nails in the coffin.

Granted, it’s a family show, but given the family at hand, everything feels a little too yellow.