Review: Avenue Q

The irreverent musical is back at the Shaftesbury Theatre to hold our hands through the more uncomfortable realities of adult life

If only coming out to your roommate or talking to your friends about race was as easy as learning your numbers. Avenue Q provides helpful, Sesame Street-style songs to talk us through these tricky moments, but there’s no illusions here – nothing in adult life is simple, as the cast reminds us at every turn. From the directionless Princeton and the loveless Kate Monster to the closeted Rod, the residents of Avenue Q are a long way from having all the answers. What they do have is a very funny show to put on.

First premiering in the West End in 2006, Avenue Q is back to celebrate its 20th anniversary, reassembling a mixed cast of humans and puppets to create educational theatre for adults, with director Jason Moore at the helm. Rather than learning how to sing the alphabet, we’re learning that we all make judgements based on race, that every good deed is inherently selfish, and that not everyone gets to see their dreams come true. But by the end of the show, we’ll also understand that everything in life is temporary, and that community makes up for a whole lot of bad.

Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx’s Tony-winning score remains one of the best of its era, playing with the audience’s discomfort but always guiding them back to common ground. Some lyrics and lines of dialogue have been updated to reflect our current era – Lucy The Slut now has an OnlyFans account, and when Kate Monster celebrates Princeton making her a mixtape, she first has to explain that this is a form of courtship from “the olden days.” Songs like ‘What Do You Do With A BA In English?’ and ‘The Internet Is For Porn’ remain unchanged, for obvious reasons. In fact, twenty years later, most of Avenue Q still feels as current, acerbic and refreshing as it did when it first premiered.

Puppeteers Emily Benjamin, Noah Harrison, Meg Hateley and Charlie McCullagh give performances of the highest calibre, swapping so seamlessly between their roles that even by the second act members of the audience are still having whispered realisations that the cast members are voicing multiple characters. The show’s human cast all manage to rival its puppets for their larger-than-life charisma, with Oliver Jacobsen and Amelia Kinu Muus winning hearts as Brian and Christmas Eve, and Dionne Ward-Anderson shining as frustrated child-star Gary.

The show’s design is full of imaginative details – expect that any inanimate object might at any second become anthropomorphised and recruited into a cheerful chorus. Set designer Anna Louizos turns a simple tenement block into a vibrant, lively neighbourhood without an overreliance on tech, aided by Ebony Molina’s clever choreography, whilst Rick Lyon’s puppets are just as winsome as they were 20 years ago.

Nihilistic as it may be at points, the show reveals that no matter what the subject matter, bright colours and jaunty tunes remain effective distractions well into adulthood. We may be learning that we should expect life to routinely kick us when we’re down, but somehow we’re smiling all the way through the lesson.

Avenue Q is currently playing at the Shaftesbury Theatre until 29 August – find tickets here