The naughtiest, foul-mouthed and outrageously funny puppets from Avenue Q are in the King’s Theatre as part of their UK tour after a ten year sell-out run in London’s West End and success worldwide.
The Tony Award winning musical was created by Jeff Marz and Robert Lopez (co-creator of Book of Mormon) after a discussion about doing a version of Hamlet featuring Kermit the Frog in the title role.
After it failed to impress the Jim Henson company, they decided to create their own Muppet-based characters based on themselves and their friends and Avenue Q was eventually born.
Avenue Q has all the characteristics of well-loved children’s TV shows including a familiar Sesame Street style set, bright colours, enthusiastic and cheesy actors and cute educational clips. However this is definitely a production for adult humour only and is not for the easily offended!
The story features Princeton, a young, naieve college graduate with his BA in English. As he blunders his way through his transition into adult life, looking to find his purpose in life, he moves into Avenue Q and quickly meets with the wacky and wonderful residents who are a blend of puppets, puppeteers and actors.
Kate Monster becomes his love interest as the cute girl next door Kindergarten teacher. Brian is the out of work comedian with an Asian therapist fiancée Christmas Eve.
Trekkie is the perverted neighbour addicted to adult internet sites. Finally there is Rod, the closeted gay Republican who is secretly in love with his room mate layabout Nicky.
As if that isn’t enough madness, there are also appearances from the Bad Idea Bears, Lucy the Slut and child star Gary Coleman (played by Nicholas McLean) as the Superintendent. It is a very distinctive street to say the least, however as a community they touch on all the challenges and dramas of negotiating adult life and helping each other along the way to accept who they are and achieve their goals.
What follows is two hours of somewhat ludicrous yet catchy upbeat songs, crude jokes and slapstick humour.
The puppeteers seamlessly change characters throughout the production delivering animated comedy performances yet also leaving the audience with a strange empathy and understanding for these furry creatures on stage.
Although the puppeteers are visible, their performances add to the character, injecting life into the puppet full of enthusiasm and personality.
Lawrence Smith who simultaneously plays both Princeton and Rod is the star of the show.
His sublime voice in Purpose, My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada and The Money Song delivers a note perfect vocal performance. Megan Armstrong took on the roles of both Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut (the name tells it all) and effortlessly switched between sweet and naive Kate to the sexy man eater Lucy.
Her emotional performance of There’s a Fine Fine Line was sweet. Smith and Armstrong had great on stage camaraderie as all the actors hammed up their performances and pushed the boundaries of outrageous humour.
Tickets on sale until Saturday 29th June at the Kings Theatre.