Ian Cheeseman spends an evening at The Lowry with Oldham’s own Clive Rowe, whose lovable Uncle Fester steals the show in a fun, feelgood production that has something for every generation.
Watching a stage musical is very special, in my opinion, but it’s even better if you know someone in the cast. Having said that, I can’t really claim to know Clive Rowe, who’s playing Uncle Fester in the UK tour of the Addams Family, but I’ve interviewed him a couple of times and he’s from Shaw in Oldham.
Last time I saw Clive he was playing Eddie Souther in Sister Act; he was brilliant. When I chatted to him, for my radio show, he told me a wonderful story about when he was filming the Christmas special of Dr Who with Kylie Minogue. A youngster came forward, as he settled into his seat alongside the Aussie songstress, but it was his autograph she was seeking, because of his appearances on The Story of Tracy Beaker as Duke, and not hers. Kylie thought that incident was hilarious.
Appearing in the Addams Family at the amazing Lowry Theatre must have been special for Clive because, although he lives in London these days, but his family are still in Shaw so no doubt there’ll be plenty of his relations in the audience this week.
Clive had told me, before I went along to the show on Tuesday evening, that the story is based around the coming of age of Wednesday. He added, “I’m always surprised by the amount of people who have a great love of the original TV series and the films. Ricardo Alfonso is an incredible Gomez and the lovely Alexandra Burke is Morticia and Lesley Joseph is playing Grandma. It’s quite an incredible cast, ensemble and orchestra.
“I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career and Addams Family is another which is really fun all the way through. I enjoy every minute I’m on stage. I desperately want to get things right but there are moments when I feel great peace particularly when I come to the end of a song I’m singing. I like to do musical theatre because I get a feeling from those moments that you can’t get anywhere else”.
As I saw Clive singing, as Uncle Fester, “The Moon and Me” at the Lowry I could certainly sense the fun he was having. He totally inhabited the character and was outstanding. The show itself was goofy and fun, as it should be. All the main performers were excellent and it was a cross generational audience. Sat next to me were a young man in his early twenties and his grandma. They looked like they really enjoyed the show and their time together, which was lovely to see.
I thought the second half of the show had the strongest songs and the tango dancing scene which centred around Alexandra Burke and Ricardo Alfonso, as Gomez and Morticia, was a particular highlight; surely that was no surprise as she finished runner up in Strictly Come Dancing in 2017. She’s certainly a triple threat, as they say in theatre.
If you’d like to see Clive as Uncle Fester, The Addams Family is at the Lowry until Saturday 16th August and touring the UK, Clive will be at Shaw Playhouse 2 on Friday 19th September with “Stolen Moments Then to Now” with Wendy Gadian telling stories and singing and you can hear my interview with him on my weekly radio show Break-a-Leg!
For tickets: https://thelowry.com/whats-on/the-addams-family-fh1q
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