If you ask anyone who has seen Avenue Q what the show is about, you usually get told “it’s like Sesame Street for grown-ups!”. This is indeed a good description, but it sells this show short. Avenue Q has a decent plot and a very good (and funny) script. The musical numbers too are witty and at times moving. The music is catchy and hummable. All in all, everything you want in a musical – and then they add puppets!

Following the story of college graduate (and puppet) Princeton (one of two roles/puppets played by Adam Pettigrew) who has found himself on Avenue Q to find an apartment – having started at Avenue A and worked his way out to the cheaper neighbourhoods – Avenue Q is a story with lots of heart, but peppered with enough risqué humour to please a varied audience of musical die-hards and those of the Family Guy generation who can enjoy childish humour in adult territory (or vice versa).

Avenue Q could easily have gone down the “star name” casting route, but have luckily avoided that to bring back some previous cast members from the West End run of the show. Rachel Jerram has moved up into the leading role of Kate Monster and shows a real skill in comic timing and a powerful belt voice in the moving ballad of 'There's a Fine, Fine Line' and in the duet 'Fantasies Come True'. Her 'doubled' role of Lucy The Slut provided some great moments of humour and showed how versatile this young actress is (Jekyll & Hyde take note - this is how you perform two characters convincingly at the same time - studied voicework!)

Miss Jerram was not alone in showing this skill, in fact all principal puppeteers/performers were taking on (at least) two roles! Chris Thatcher as Nicky/Trekkie Monster/Bad Idea Bear showed the greatest variety of voices and if he’d slightly toned down the “mugging” facial expressions, could easily have stolen the show from Miss Jerram.

A special mention must go to Katherine Moraz who played Mrs T and one of the Bad Idea Bears. She provided the “second hand” to many of the two person puppets and her timing made the transitions for the principals seamless and gave an effortless look to what must be a fastpaced show both on and off the stage.

What really makes this show stand out is the great comedic script and the witty song lyrics, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx really are the Noel Coward for the Facebook generation. With titles like “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist”, “The Internet Is For Porn” and “Schadenfreude” (look it up – even the word in itself brings joy in its own unique way!) it also doesn’t shy away from controversy, but everything is dealt with in the best possible taste (except perhaps from the puppet sex – which leads to another witty song entitled “You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (While Making Love)”).

Anna Louizos very clever set design combined with the sharp lighting from Howell Binkley make a simple single set transform from exterior to interior with ease, and a very ingenious lighting transformation into the Empire State building shows that even in the design, ingenuity outweighs flashy set-pieces and full stage transformations.

The biggest compliment that I can give this show is that having dragged my (rather reluctant and non-musical fan) partner to see this in London, they not only begged to come see this again with me, but have been telling all their friends to go to. So, in case word hasn’t already reached you that way, get your tickets sorted now and head down to Avenue Q for that great childhood feeling of laughing at things you know you shouldn’t!

Contains scenes which may be unsuitable for under 12s.

Performances:

Tue 28 Jun:       7.30pm

Wed 29 Jun:      2.30pm, 7.30pm

Thu 30 Jun:       7.30pm

Fri 1 Jul:           5.30pm, 8.30pm

Sat 2 Jul:          4pm, 7.30pm

Tickets: £12.50-£30.50

Box Office: 08448 717 648(bkg fee)         
Web: www.ambassadortickets.com/glasgow