Avenue Q

I laughed out loud – and when you’re putting on a comedy, you really can’t expect better than that.

One cannot dismiss that a Kidz R Us show can call on a professional production team and supportive parents who are prepared to offer their own time and efforts as well as encouraging their offspring. This show was no exception and whilst I acknowledge the value of the production team’s input, which is clearly considerable, I must applaud the youngsters. Not so young in this case with cast members including past Kidz who must have relished the opportunity to come back to perform in this highly un-PC but hilariously adult show. The music was backing tracks, so immediately there’s a challenge. Totally unforgiving, recorded music means you have to keep up, but we didn’t have to worry – there was never a moment where the pace dropped. The nasal twang of the American accents was evident from the start and if anyone wondered if the cast would be able to keep it up for two hours it soon became apparent it was embedded in the performance and was not something that would slip (and I include the Japanese accent in this too!) even in the singing – often where accents fly out of the window.

Normally I would mention the costumes but this was such a different show!  Were the puppets costumes for the actors or props or, indeed, characters in their own right whose choice of clothing should be criticised? The actors became invisible in their black, as is the intention, and relied solely on their voices to bring life to the names we met. In all cases the range in their vocal intonations was a delight, and yes, what is often referred to as comic timing, can mean the time between the set up and the punch line or the beats used in delivery, but I’m sure it has as much to do with the pitch and tone of the voice as the actor, without a trace of, “I’m being funny”, includes us, the audience, in his understanding of the emotion of what he’s saying. Whatever it is that makes comedy work these Kidz had it.

A real feature of acting with another human is making eye contact and I wonder how hard it is, after years of learning to look into your co-actor’s eyes, to focus instead on your puppet and watch it making ‘eye contact’ with its opposite number. I suspect it takes a lot of practice and it was convincingly achieved tonight as was the taking on of additional ‘voice roles’ by at least three of these young actors, which I found quite confusing as I looked for who was speaking the lines when the puppet handler clearly wasn’t. Having a conversation with yourself is very clever! I don’t want to overlook the fact that two humans took part in this show as well. Acting with puppets must be somewhat surreal and certainly allows you to play ‘larger than life’ in an almost cartoon-like way. This pair blended into the fun wonderfully well.

Suffice it to say that all of the cast members are quite remarkable in the energy they bring to the stage, the stage skills they exhibit and their obvious commitment to a theatre society that gives them so much in the way of encouragement and support.  Long may Kidz flourish.

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