Avenue Q - Alexandra Theatre Birmingham

"..a faultless production and hilarious to watch with lots of laugh-out-loud comedy.."

This week The Alexandra Theatre is staging Lopez and Marx's musical comedy - Avenue Q. The production cleverly features interacting puppets and human actors on stage and brings you the stories of several  quirky characters who live at Avenue Q, featuring mainly around Princeton who moves into the neighbourhood in order to find his purpose.

The puppets have hilarious and sometimes naughty personalities. The puppeteers create the characters with unique voice artistry and clever motion.  Even though the puppeteers are visible on stage the audiences focus is cleverly kept on the puppets.  The Cookie Monster and the Blonde Bombshell were operated and voiced by Cecily Redman. Both Cecily Redman and Lawrence Smith, who voiced Princeton, were incredible at bringing these two on/off lovers to life. They provided superb voices and acted well throughout. Cecily Redman provided a strong and emotive vocal performance when she sang `There`s A Fine, Fine Line'.
 
Other puppet highlights  were performances by the crude and naughty characters of Trekkie Monster, voiced by Tom Steedon, and the very entertaining Bad Idea Bears.
 
'Human' actors Christmas Eve (Saori Oda), Brain (Oliver Stanley) and Gary Coleman (Nicholas McClean) fitted in perfectly amongst all the zany colourful puppets. and all with great chemistry, delighting the audience with fast-paced comedic routines.
 
Musical highlights included `It Sucks To Be Me`, `If You Were Gay` and `I`m Not Wearing Underwear Today`. With slapstick comedy and crude jokes this is not a family show nor a show for the easily-offended, but adults with a great sense of humour will just love it. The set, which subtly adapts during the performance, works brilliantly along with the use of two television screens. 
 
In all, this was a faultless production and hilarious to watch with lots of laugh-out-loud comedy, ending with a standing ovation which was most certainly deserved. 

Runs to 16 February
Age guide over 16
Contains strong adult themes

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