Avenue Q (review)

Avenue Q opened at The Grove this week and was enthusiastically greeted by the first night audience.

This is a show that’s strictly for adults. The images publicising the production may give the impression that it’s wholesome family entertainment but this inventive, original and hysterically funny musical is, as the Americans would say, “R-rated”.

It is one of the funniest shows I’ve seen and about as politically incorrect as it’s possible to be. The story is set in a mythical street, somewhere between Queens and Brooklyn, that is populated by puppets and their handlers.

And, as bizarre as it sounds, the two become one, with the humans taking on the mannerisms of their furry friends.

There are three actors who don’t have their hands up a puppet – lazy slob Brian (Edward Judge), his unemployed Japanese wife Christmas Eve (Julie Yammanee) and the neighbourhood’s handyman, Gary Coleman (Kayi Ushe).

Now TV fans will know that Coleman, once the child star of the hit US comedy Different Strokes, is now dead but his memory is affectionately honoured throughout the show.

Avenue Q’s Gary found himself on the scrapheap at 15 and ended up on skid row where he fixes the plumbing and other odd jobs at a series of ramshackle apartments.

The story follows the attempts of newcomer Princeton to find his purpose in life. He’s left college with a degree in English and is now on his uppers, unemployed and with bills coming out of his Muppet-like ears.

He winds up on Avenue Q where he meets the other inhabitants – a shaggy-coated pervert called Trekkie Monster, a burlesque singer called Lucy The Slut, a teacher called Kate Monster, who falls in love with the shmuck, and a couple of cute “Care Bears” with evil intent.

The comedy comes thick and fast and is the staple of the show’s songs which cover such homespun topics as racism, homosexuality and pornography. The lyrics are so OTT that you wonder how they ever got past the censors but they were probably laughing too hard to notice.

This laugh-out-loud musical runs until Saturday. For tickets call the box office 01582 602080 or go online www.grovetheatre.co.uk

ANNE COX