The Addams Family, Mayflower Theatre

LOVE is unexpectedly all around in this bizarre but brilliant new production, which sees the famously morbid cartoon creations of Charles Addams turned into a musical comedy.

To the horror of all the weird and wonderful clan, Wednesday Addams (the stunning Carrie Hope Fletcher whose powerful voice really packs a punch on her solo numbers) falls in love with an all American boy.

“What’s normal for the spider is a calamity for the fly,” muses her father Gomez (Cameron Blakely, who beautifully balances the conflicting demands of his wife and daughter).

Fearing the reaction of her mother Morticia (a svelte and sexy Samantha Womack), Wednesday begs her father to keep their wedding plans secret until after Lucas and his parents have been for a rather interesting dinner chez Addams.

Of course there's a storm of biblical proportions - much like the ones we've been experiencing in Southampton this week - and they have to stay the night in a house filled with coffins, torture chambers, taxidermy and a whole host of seriously eccentric characters.

It's a wafer thin plot, but the strange family members and chorus of ghosts bring the show to life.

Les Dennis is almost unrecognisable as he excels in the emcee role of Uncle Fester and Dickon Gough performs a brilliant cameo as looming butler Lurch, who is virtually silent throughout with superb comedy timing, until he bursts into an operatic aria during the finale.

There are lots of laughs, I particularly enjoyed the one-liner "if you're going to act like a tool, you can sleep in the shed."

The score includes some memorable one-liners, but the omission of the famous signature tune, other than a few bars from the orchestra, is a real shame.

It's fortunate that in every other way, the show is creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky. The Addams Family, they really are a scream.

LORELEI REDDIN

The Addams Family runs until Saturday July 29. Tickets: 023 8071 1811 or mayflower.org.uk