Family fun Addams Family fun!
MONEY GRAB BY LEADERS
A MOTLEY collection of characters will be taking up residence at the coast this autumn with a special Halloween get-together in mind.
The Addams Family will be creating mayhem at The Playhouse Whitley Bay when parents Morticia and Gomez find their happily macabre lifestyle is thrown into disarray in a theatre show which promises to capture all the dark humour of the original tale.
The darkly humorous family was initially created in animation form by US cartoonist Charles Addams and then became famous through a TV series in the sixties before inspiring a string of films.
This time they will be brought to life on stage by Whitley Bay Operatic Society in a new musical comedy.
And the show - set to open on Halloween night itself, October 31 will recreate an original storyline which features all the well-loved characters.
It sees dad Gomez, played by Charles Doherty, forced to keep a secret from his beloved wife when daughter Wednesday (Emma Ward) - described as the ultimate princess of darkness - confides in him that she has fallen in love with an unsuitable young man.
Dreading Morticia (Emma Scott) finding out that the boyfriend is unforgivably - sweet and respectable, he feels the tension mount as the date approaches for their dinner party where they will meet Wednesday’s partner and his equally repellent - in other words normal -parents.
The show, featuring other Addams Family favourites including Cousin It, Uncle Fester, butler Lurch and disembodied hand Thing, will run at the theatre at 7.15pm nightly from October 31 until November 3.
There also will be a 2.15pm matinee performances on the Saturday. NORTHERN leaders have united to demand control over up to £2.4bn in cash which is currently spent by the EU.
They say the money would be used to bring investment into the North of England and create jobs.
Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “Alongside businesses investing in creating new, higherskilled jobs, we need to ensure those living in towns and communities which have been great in the North’s glorious past can play their part in it being even greater in the future.”
Mayors and business leaders want the North to take direct control of money currently known as EU Structural Funds.
This is cash from the EU which is matched with money from the Treasury, and comes to a total of £2.4bn a year.
The North East is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the money, getting £64 per year per person.
Tees Valley gets £70 a year and only one region, Cornwall, receives more than this. The Government has said that Structural Funds will be replaced by a new scheme called the Shared Prosperity Fund after Brexit takes place.
Launching a consultation in July, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said Councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships, which are led by local businesses, would draw up industrial strategies to help decide how the money would be spent.
The North East region and Tees Valley have both been asked to draw up strategies. But details of how the Shared Prosperity Fund will work are not due until the next Government Spending Review, which is expected in early spring. Northern leaders have urged the Government to ensure funding is guaranteed much sooner than this, and to get the Shared Prosperity Fund up and running to create more and better jobs.
The urgency is underlined by new analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which shows how some towns and cities have fallen further behind the rest of the country on employment and pay for the least well-off.
Nationally the UK has record employment, but some towns and cities are locked out of this success, according to JRF’s new report.
For example, Newcastle has an employment rate of 66.3% compared to a GB average of 73.9%.
Roger Marsh OBE, chair of the NP11 group which represents local enterprise partnerships across the North, said: “The creation of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund is an opportunity to create a funding mechanism that supports and accelerates the work already under way to create faster growth which benefits our regions and the UK as a whole.
“We want to work with the Government to ensure the fund is designed in a way that supports locally-determined plans and priorities, is straightforward to administer and is in place to ensure a smooth transition from European funding.”
The four metro-mayors of the North have also backed the call.
They are Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, Liverpool city region mayor Steve Rotheram, Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen and Sheffield city region mayor Dan Jarvis.
They said: “More than two years since the Brexit referendum, the defining mantra of that campaign – to take back control – looms large as we approach March 2019.
“If that phrase is to mean anything, it must mean substantial devolution of power and resources out of Westminster to the English regions.”
Newcastle , North Tyneside and Northumberland are to have their own metro-mayor, to be appointed this year with elections taking place in 2019.
A number of North East buildings and projects have benefited from EU funding.
The Portobello Trade Park in Durham was financed with £2.7m from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), one of the EU’s Structural Funds. Consett Business Park in Durham received £1.1m in ERDF funding
The regeneration of a 660-hectare area on the River Tyne North Bank benefited from £2.4m in ERDF funding
And the Core Science Central in Newcastle city centre was built with the support of £5.6m in ERDF funding.