With song titles like Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, The Internet is for Porn and I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today, you can tell that Avenue Q is not going to be your average musical. Avenue Q may have puppets, but it’s definitely not for children, nor for taking elderly family members if they are easily offended.
“Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes, doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes,” sing the residents of Avenue Q, a ragtag bunch of humans, puppets, straight, gay, black and white. There’s even former child star Gary Coleman as the local handyman, a quite ludicrous proposition which just adds to the zaniness of this show.
Avenue Q is very funny and confronts head on issues which Jerry Springer would take an entire season to get through: racism, sexism, homosexuality, promiscuity, sex, homelessness, to name but a few.
What became Avenue Q was originally conceived as a television show, with funny, mock-educational songs. But it ended up first as an off-Broadway musical before transferring to Broadway, where it won the Tony Award for best new musical, beating Wicked that year. It has since had almost five years in London. This is its first national tour.
If there is an overarching theme, it is about finding one’s purpose in life. But the real fun here is the puppets and some of the outrageous things that they can get away with saying and singing, allowing things to be said that might not normally be voiced, but which here get laughs rather than gasps.
Internet porn addict Trekkie Monster gets some of the best lines, while the star of the show was Rachel Jerram, flitting effortlessly between sweet and innocent Kate Monster – or so we thought until one memorably debauched night on the tiles – and curvaceous Lucy the Slut, who attempts to win the heart of Kate’s beau Princeton (Adam Pettigrew).
Avenue Q is a hilarious night’s entertainment. Watching the interaction between flatmates Rod and Nicky, you wish that Bert and Ernie would finally come out of the closet. Sesame Street will never be the same again.
Avenue Q is at Bristol Hippodrome until May 28. Click here for more information.
