Avenue Q

Review by Sam

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Tony Award winning musical comedy makes its long-awaited return to London after a 20-year hiatus, with a fresh new cast puppeteering the raunchy mischievous chaos.

Whilst fresh out of college student Princeton searches for his purpose in life, he winds up in the colourful and extremly adult neighbourhood of Avenue Q, where his new neighbours teach him how to live. Covering the real-world problems of sex, racism, homelessness and much more, through an outrageously funny soundtrack, the show's 00's attitude and ability to tackle taboo topics still lands each hillarious gut punch as precisely as ever before. Staged as impressively as the puppets themselves, this big budget revival leaves no stone unturned, with Anna Louizos' set design making the puppets quite literally GROW, and blending with Tim Lutkin's precision lighting, all directed by Jason Moore, in a chaotic concoction which continually amazes.

The hilarity of the piece is only matched by its stellar cast, which in the case of Avenue Q is as hard working as you can see in London right now. Combining puppets with live performances in no easy feat, but the vocal prowess, voice performances and seamless movement of all the performers make the production a masterclass in performing. Emily Benjamin's almost invisible movement between puppeteering Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut is truly breathtaking, all the while performing some of the most pitch perfect vocals, bringing these fury character to life. Other notable standouts are Noah Harrison and Charlie McCullagh, both also performing vocal gymnastics as they multi-role a variety of puppets in what can only be described as organised comedic chaos! McCullagh brings the house down with his performance of "The Internet Is for Porn", a song which is still as wildly funny today as it was 20 years ago!

Despite so much changing since it first premiered, Avenue Q remains the perfect monster of a show. It is a guarantee laugh a minute which is sure to make London audiences blue (balls) from laughing all summer long!