Avenue Q shouldn’t work. A musical meant to be the antithesis of a childhood staple that involves singing puppets and jokes tailored to offend the easily offended seems to be, at best, a set-up for a TV skit and not a full-length musical.
But it does work, and does so remarkably well, in fact.
Much has been made over the musical since it premiered on Broadway. Yes, it’s a rude musical that rebels against the whole-heartedness of Sesame Street and has its tongue so firmly placed in its cheek its surprising it doesn’t bleed, but for all its profanity, taboo-busting songs and smut-laced jokes lays a fairly conventional musical with a pure, optimistic heart.
Is there a plot? Not really. Recent graduate Princeton has just moved into the rundown neighbourhood of Avenue Q and sets out to find his purpose in life, but this serves more as an excuse to introduce the rather colourful characters to the audience.
And what great characters the musical gives us. On the human side we have loveable loser Brian, an aspiring comic who seems more at ease at being the local slacker, his soon-to-be wife Christmas Eve, who has a wide range of qualifications but little professional experience and suffers from stereotypical Asian pronunciations, and landlord Gary, who turns out to be the former child TV star from Different Strokes (and with Coleman’s recent death, it’s a joke that doesn’t quite work as well but still stands up enough). On the puppet side, besides young Princeton, are roommates Nicky and Rod (Avenue Q’s answer to Bert and Ernie), pure-hearted Kate Monster and porn-obsessed Trekkie Monster.
Mixing puppets and humans is a tricky enough proposal but having the puppeteers completely visible is an even bigger gamble, and it pays off handsomely. What is rather extraordinary is how quickly one accepts the convention. The puppets all look great and their human manipulators are equally expressive, creating performances that are fully rounded, and are complimented by the human performances.
The end result is one of the best productions to tour in Scotland for some time. Hysterically funny and far smarter than one supposes, Avenue Q is musical theatre at its best.
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