Samantha Womack and Les Dennis to co-star in The Addams Family musical

EastEnders' Samantha Womack and Corrie's Les Dennis are to co-star in a touring musical based on The Addams Family in 2017

Soap stars Samantha Womack and Les Dennis have signed up to star in a musical production of The Addams Family.

Samantha, 44, who is leaving EastEnders after almost a decade playing Ronnie Mitchell, has been cast as matriarch Morticia in the show.

Les, 63, whose final Coronation Street scenes as Michael Rodwell air on Friday night, has been cast as Uncle Fester in the musical comedy.

coronation street, les dennis, michael rodwell — (Image credit: Mark Bruce)

The stars playing Morticia’s husband Gomez and son Pugsley are yet to be announced, while stage actress Carrie Hope Fletcher will play daughter Wednesday Addams in the tour, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles Addams.

The family originally appeared as cartoon characters before being adapted into a black and white TV series in the 1960s.

In the musical, Wednesday Addams, 'the ultimate princess of darkness… has grown up and has a shocking secret … she’s fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family'.

The Addams Family opens at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, on April 20 next year.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.