AVENUE Q

Malvern Festival Theatre

(Sell a Door Theatre Company & Richard Darbourne Ltd)

After success on Broadway and in the West End, the Tony Award winning musical, Avenue Q finally makes it to Malvern! Co-creator of The Book of Mormon, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx create the most authentically original and relevant musical theatre songs ever. “It Sucks To Be Me”, “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist”, “If You Were Gay” and “The Internet Is For Porn” gives you a pretty good idea of the show content and even though the majority of characters are puppets, this is certainly not aimed at children.

Avenue Q is so wonderfully refreshing and draws a completely new audience to live theatre. It tells of, college graduate, Princeton who moves into the only affordable area in New York, as he embarks on the onerous task of finding his purpose in life. With the help of his new neighbours, he experiences the trials and tribulations of starting out on his own. Richard Lowe does an excellent job with the aforementioned character and also as the closet homosexual, Rod, who lives with his flatmate, Nicky, in true Bert and Ernie style. Nicky is superbly animated by Stephen Arden who is also responsible for the porn fixated, Trekkie Monster and a Bad Idea Bear and in typical Avenue Q fashion, instead of a right hand man, he assisted by a left armed woman in the form of the ever so talented Jessica Parker. Sarah Harlington creates the perfectly vulnerable yet feisty, Kate Monster, with incredible vocals that gently tug at the heartstrings. The ‘human’ characters are played by Arina II, as the struggling therapist, Christmas Eve, with Richard Morse as her unemployed fiancé, Brian and, for this performance, the part of child star, Gary Coleman, was played by Cleopatra Joseph.

Special mention has to be made of the incredible band, headed by Dean McDermott. The set is very similar to the West End version and works really well. Most enjoyable though are the casts’ fantastic puppetry skills, developed under the watchful eye of puppet coach, Nigel Plaskitt. So much humour is portrayed, and empathy for the characters achieved, through the wonderful execution of these skills.

I recommend that everyone go to see Avenue Q. It is so relevant to our time and a true reflection of human nature and the difficulties we all encounter, often on a daily basis. It is very funny, charming, heartfelt and hopeful. It runs at Malvern Festival Theatre until Saturday.

4 stars