The kookiest and creepiest family around will be moving into Birmingham on the 6-10 June in the spellbinding musical The Addams Family. We caught up with the cast Les Dennis (Fester), Samantha Womack (Morticia), Carrie Hope Fletcher (Wednesday) and Cameron Blakely (Gomez) ahead of their arrival at the Birmingham Hippodrome next week!

The musical boasts top production values as the eeriness of the set and costumes creates a creepy atmosphere that shadows the whole show. Opening in the Addams Family’s house, the ensemble are creeping out of the crypt revealing their intricately designed spectacular costumes that ooze darkness. Alongside this is a powerful score by Andrew Lippa his innovative and strong musical numbers really push the narrative, which is heightened by Alistair David’s dynamic and animated choreography,

It’s a haunting production that combines expressive music with highly comedic dialogue. The family’s personalities are striking, and these are created magnificently by the superb cast.

Did you base your character at all on the original cartoons by Charles Addams?

Cameron: It was interesting to look at them as a reference but we didn’t actually use much of it, because they are all very dark, spindly and very weird looking.

Les: They were probably more important to Diego our designer for his inspiration, we all come with our own ideas of what our characters are. I watched the original black and white TV series with Jackie Coogan as Fester. I think what is lovely for us is that we are creating, because it’s the premiere of the show here in the UK, we aren’t following in another cast, we are creating our own versions of the characters.

Samantha: I use the cartoons a bit, but mainly because of the way Morticia was rooted, she didn’t have legs or feet so it makes you realise the reason behind how Morticia’s walk started, which I didn’t know because I just watched the TV and film version. The way she was rooted, that kind of physicality helped a lot as I understood where it came from.

Carrie: That’s the thing with designs really, you have a costume and you have an idea of how it is but then you put it on and have to move around and dance, and suddenly the physicality completely changes and your character becomes someone slightly different.

Carrie, Wednesday was a dream role for you, how did you feel when you found out?

Carrie: Oh I sobbed the first night I went on stage, went in my dressing room and sobbed. It’s incredible, I’d never heard of the Addams Family a few years ago until I was asked to do a concert with Andrew Lippa, it was the first concert he did here. They needed a female for the concert and contacted my agent, my name was put forward and after watching videos of me singing Les Mis at West End Live he said he’d give me Pulled from the Addams Family. I just completely fell in love with it, I couldn’t get enough of it. I brought the soundtrack from Amazon and devoured everything I possibly could. I was obsessed with the films as a child and I really enjoy Tim Burtonesque type of things. I just couldn’t believe there was a musical, so I said to my agent after the concert “even if there is just a wiff of the production coming to the UK, please please make sure I am first in line for an audition for Wednesday.”

Do you think there are any elements of your character in you?

Les: You have to bring a bit of you and I think that Fester is childlike and I try to go through life being childlike. Fester is in the family but he resists the darkness which is why he is pulled towards the moon.

Cameron: It is nice to have the opportunity to put a lot my stupid nature into the part. I love being silly and childish and it lends itself to that.

Carrie: This version of Wednesday especially, she is 18 and has fallen in love. Everyone can relate to that story, bringing someone home to a parent and seeing how they react. I was a very intense teenager emotionally with boys, with every teenage girl they are a little dramatic and then with boys it is just craziness. But with Wednesday she is already up there so when she is in love, you definitely need to give her a wide birth.

Samantha: I always like to see a version of myself in my characters if I had the confidence to be like that. So you can try out part of your personality that you’d like to be like. I enjoy the fact that she doesn’t like small talk, she is very skilled and very contained and I am not like that, I think the beauty of these parts is that you get to fantasise about that internal strength – these characters are so sure of who they are.

What do you think is so special about the score?

Samantha: Andrew Lippa is a lover of all musicals and appreciates all different styles and types and he said that the challenge with this is that he combined three or four musical styles in the piece. You have contemporary musical theatre with the younger characters, very flamenco and Latin sounds with Gomez and traditional musicals for Fester and Morticia. So I think you get glimmers of things, I feel like I’ve heard something from somewhere else, the music just feels so familiar with me which is where Andrew is so clever.