THE ADDAMS FAMILY: THE MUSICAL

By Diana Simmonds

July 15 2026

THE ADDAMS FAMILY: THE MUSICAL, Joshua Robson Productions & Hayes Theatre Co at the Hayes Theatre, 11 July - 9 August 2026. Photography by James Reiser

Even if you’ve never seen the original two-season 1964-66 series (streaming somewhere around the world right now), or have the DVDs somewhere, or saw the movie in 1998, or the stage musical on Broadway in 2010-11, you will surely recognise Vic Mizzy’s finger-snapping theme tune: “They're creepy and they're kooky – Mysterious and spooky – They’re all together ooky – The Addams family…”

The opening night audience at the Hayes certainly did – happily clapping in place of the finger snaps. Everyone is instantly primed for a riotous evening with the occupants of 0001 Cemetery Lane, the ooky spooky Gothic mansion so simply and beautifully realised by set designer Dann Barber. Never has so much been done with two coffins and clever lighting (Jasmine Rizk). Similarly, Barber’s costumes will satisfy long-time fans, tickle the fancies of new ones, and give everyone the gasps at how glamorous many packets of rubber gloves can be.

Then there’s the six-piece band, invisible behind the backdrop, including music director Zander Gaal, with music supervisor Zara Stanton making like a full orchestra with the witty score (music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa). Great work from sound designer Chaii Ki Chapman and sound engineer Em-Jay Dwyer, ensuring all can be heard and no one is deafened. The book, by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, is a concentration of the family – Morticia, Gomez, the kids Wednesday and Pugsley, uncle Fester, manservant Lurch et al – into an episode where Wednesday falls in love with a “normal” boy and he and his parents, the Beinekes, are invited to dinner. Just which of the two families is the real weird mob is the underlying question for the audience. In 2026, there is a comical whiff of Schitt’s Creek and Moira Rose.

To bring the show to life, producer Joshua Robson and director Julia Robertson have assembled an exceptional cast. Erika Heynatz is the stand-out as skirt-hobbled, free-spirited sex bomb Morticia, vocally and every other which way she is magnetic. Not that the rest of the 14- strong company are slouches. As her adoring husband, Gomez, Marcus Rivera is a Ricky Ricardo of Latin fire and unctuous arousal. Recent NIDA graduates Jenny Guigayoma and Georgia Oom alternate between eerie charm and smack-worthy brattiness as Wednesday and Pugsley. Eliot Aitken is a scene-stealing Lurch as he moves at the speed of a tectonic plate beneath droll architectural headgear.

Grandmama (Deborah Galanos) and Uncle Fester (Evan Lever) are the kind of older rels most kids would relish. She’s totally obnoxious, and he’s dead peculiar, and both revel in their roles. The normal Beinekes (Alexander Tye, Teagan Wouters, and Rory O’Keeffe) are inevitably a bit insipid and white bread, compared to their hosts, but actually, that’s probably the slyly satirical point.

The fabled disembodied hand, Thing, is cleverly represented by any number of ghostly white hands doing their, um, thing through slits in the curtain and providing a zany chorus line through the “ancestors” Mae Li Cowell, Paloma Renouf, Jayden Prelc, and Nathan Fernandez, all gloriously choreographed – as is the rest of the show – by Shannon Burns.

This is a show bursting with all the family values and all the feels we hold so dear: sex appeal, attempted murder, true love, ghoulish humour, unfailing courtesy, deadly weapons, peculiar food, good manners, and so on. It’s packed with profound silliness and so much laughter it should come with a health warning. A treat for all ages and stages, it’s another Hayes triumph.