Avenue Q

Avenue Q is a Broadway musical that uses a mix of puppets, humans, music and a seriously politically incorrect script to tackle a bunch of societies issues. The plot follows Princeton a recent college graduate who is ready to take on the world, but instead finds himself living on Avenue Q (the only one he can afford) and searching for his purpose. There isn't an overly complex storyline but instead seems to be more about coping with today's world. Avenue Q is all about laughing about the things that people tend to get offended about in real life. The cast is a bunch of muppet style puppets (as shown above) operated on stage with the puppeteers still in sight and boy can those puppeteers sing.

Characters include an uptight and obviously gay investment banker Rod, a grown up Gary Coleman, a cute kindergarten teacher Kate Monster, a reclusive porn addict Trekkie Monster and the infamous Lucy the Slut, amongst others.

The big appeal of Avenue Q is that they can get away with saying pretty much whatever they want to because they are doing it through puppets, this works out to be quite an effective medium because when they get down to it the cast of Avenue Q do really have some valid statements about society as it stands modern day. The music in the show is where most of the statements are made, songs such as "It sucks to be me", "Everyone's a little bit racist" and everyone's favourite "The internet is for porn" are quite funny but also bring up things that people tend to get sensitive about when they are talked about in real life and make the subjects discussable which is only achievable because by using puppets in the show it removes it from 'real life.'

I thought Avenue Q was a lot of fun, it had so many memorable an unconventional characters. I especially liked the bad idea bears who showed up to propose things such as binge drinking or suicide; they were like instead of having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, having a devil either side whispering bad ideas to you constantly. I think that was the main message in Avenue Q, that things about life suck; there is misfortune and things that offend but if you are sharing your life with the right people then none of that matters. I found the show a little more cutesy than I was expecting but it was definitely an enjoyable night out with a whole heap of catchy songs (I literally went home humming).