Avenue Q

This was the first time I have seen  “Avenue Q”, which has music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, from a book written by Jeff Whitty. The show is famous for the use of puppets, worked by unconcealed puppeteers, performing with human actors. It was originally a television series, which was then developed for the stage and first performed at the 2002 National Music Theatre Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, USA, before opening Off-Broadway in March 2003, then transferring to Broadway where it won three Tony Awards, it then opened in the West End of London in 2006, and ran for five years. It is a coming-of-age story about a  college graduate named Princeton who believes that now he has finished his studies, all the good things in life will come to him on a plate  and decides he should and needs to look for his purpose in life.  He looks for somewhere to live and the best he can do is a shabby apartment  in a run down area of New York on a street called Avenue Q, but it soon becomes apparent that it is not an ordinary neighbourhood as he meets and makes a number of unusual new friends.Unfortunately for Princeton and his new friends they are unable to get the type of jobs they want, relationships are made and broken and they struggle to find their elusive purpose in life, as they come to terms with the realities of life and what there is on offer.

When leaving the theatre after seeing this production of “Avenue Q” from St. Paul’s Players , I said to my friend that I could sum up how I felt about this show in the words, wonderful, very funny, great acting, excellent singing and an outstanding show that I really enjoyed and didn’t want to end.
Director Phil Armstrong, Producer Graham Cohen and Musical Director James Eccleshare had managed to put together a stellar cast of actors who worked together to produce spot on comic timing and a slick fast paced well rehearsed very entertaining show with no weak links. They all manage to act, dance and sing excellently while at the same time working the puppets expertly, all with very good accents, and i found myself watching the puppets not the actors working them which is one of the objectives of this show.The cast included Christian Brabin (Princeton), Beth Eccleshare( Kate Monster) Jack Corrigan (Nicky& Trekkie Monster),Jamie Fletcher (Rod), Jenny Hubbard( Lucy), Lily Armstrong( Christmas Eve) Katie Toole( Gary Coleman)Jamie Taylor(Mrs T) and Jamie along with Caitlin Keller were the Bad Idea Bears, and finally we have the only human character  Dave Maloney as Brian.The band led by Musical Director James Eccleshare played very well, at just the right level, giving great support to the actors on stage and were an integral part of the performance
There was just one impressive static New York street set and it was clear that a great deal of hard work had gone into building it, and along with good technical input made a great space for the cast to work on, congratulations to all the stage and technical crew, set builders, painters and properties.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this outstanding very funny production what a wonderful evening we had, thank you very much.
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