Avenue Q

Avenue Q
By Matt Fricker

There has always been a great brotherhood between the West End and Broadway, with the most successful productions frequently travelling across the Atlantic to engross theatre goers on the other side.

Avenue Q is one of the most recent shows to be bought over from Broadway. Nominated for 6 Tony awards in 2004, it came away with 3. Including; Best Musical and Best Original Score.

What’s it about?
Set in modern day New York, Avenue Q revolves around the lives of 22 year old English graduate Princeton and the other residents of Avenue Q; Love lorn Teaching assistant Kate Monster, Secretly flamboyant accountant Rod, Happy- go- lucky Nicky, Porn obsessed Trekkie Monster, Wannabe comedian Brian and his wife Christmas Eve, and former Child star Gary Coleman who is the janitor of Avenue Q.

What’s good?
Avenue Q is clearly influenced by Jim Henson’s puppet creation, Sesame Street. There are several similarities between the characters, most notably Rod and Nicky’s likeness to Bert and Ernie and Trekkie Monster’s likeness to Cookie Monster. Not only in voice, but also in design and movement.
The songs are also reminiscent of Sesame Street, with each song containing “educational undertones” such as “Everyone’s a little bit racist” and “The internet is for porn”

What’s bad?
Avenue Q definitely isn’t for everyone, the easily offended will most probably be offended. As will those who feel that puppets shouldn’t utter a word that is not Uc rated. That said, it is my firm belief that if you fit into that category of audience, you probably shouldn’t even consider seeing Avenue Q or most modern theatre for that matter.

Overall
A raucous reception greeted the end of the performance I saw, reminiscent of a pop concert rather than a West End Musical. This illustrated to me the changes that musical theatre has gone through in the past few years. Now we have plays being written for the I- pod generation, a whole new audience is discovering the beauty of the West End and Avenue Q is the perfect vehicle to introduce them to this great art.