KENDAL College students up the ante each time they stage their big summer theatre production.

No easy task again this year following the professional and polished Sunshine on Leith, which had a massive impact in 2014.

This June's offer has all the ingredients to equal anything KC's assistant head of school (creative arts) Hilary Pezet and her energetic young performers have previously put on - The Addams Family, a magnificently macabre new musical that has recently been released for the amateur stage.

Expect humour, quick fire jokes, plenty of physical comedy, and a good storyline, all parcelled up in sparkling Hollywood style.

It tells of Wednesday Addams, the ultimate princess of darkness, who has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family. A man her parents have never met. And if that weren’t upsetting enough, she confides in her father and begs him not to tell her mother. Now, Gomez must do something he’s never done before - keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia. Everything could change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday’s 'normal' boyfriend and his parents.

Running at Kendal's Brewery Arts Centre from Wednesday-Saturday, June 10-13 (7.30pm, with a 2.30pm Saturday matinee), the show stars students who have had a bumper successful year auditioning for drama schools and university places.

Two of Kendal's top talents will be centre stage - the Baxter siblings, Emily who plays Wednesday and Elliot in the role of Gomez.

Both have been frantically fitting rehearsals in between auditions for drama school and Emily has just been accepted at Guildford School of Acting. Meanwhile, Elliot has landed a place at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire.

No doubt, the show will see them leave Kendal College on a theatrical high.

The cast also includes Bonny Dinsdale is the splendid guise of Morticia and David Lowe plays Uncle Fester. David will be working with a professional theatre company touring with Young Sherlock Holmes (playing Sherlock), and Bonny is taking year out to develop her dance skills and apply for musical theatre. Lurch is played by year one student Haydn Whitehead.

Another key role is the part of Alice Beineke played by Connie Svatins, who has been offered a place at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) to study acting. She is partnered in the show by Burneside talent, Fraser Wright as Mal Beineke, whose off to the Birmingham School of Acting. Grasmere student, Haydn Barnes (Conquistador Ancestor) and Georgia Ward (Show Girl Ancestor) have been accepted to study musical theatre at The Arden in Manchester and Verity Rose (Bride Ancestor) to Salford School of Acting.

In the band are Joe Wyatt and Tom Atkinson also moving on to LIPA. The show's technical team also boasts three students who will be studying at LIPA, Central and Rose Bruford in September - Louis Norris, Gemma Martin and Johnny Myers.

KC's assistant head of school (creative arts) Hilary Pezet says The Addams Family is a very challenging production and has numerous singing and dancing numbers from tango to show dancing to sword fighting and vaudeville: "The excellent Kerry Bland has returned early from maternity to join me in choreographing and directing the show. It's fantastic to have her back and we have already had so much fun seeing how far we can push this show to create our own version of it.

"It's very funny and relies on perfect comic timing and accurate representation of characters that many in the audience will know and love."

The set for the show has been designed and built in house by technician Mike Nelson and Mike Denny with the students, creating a complex moving set that requires precision timing from the actors for it to work. From exteriors to interiors, from dungeons to Central Park to moving beds there is much in this show to keep me awake at night.

Box office 01539-725133.