Wednesday 11 September 2019

Review: Avenue Q at Milton Keynes Theatre



Review: Avenue Q at Milton Keynes Theatre – Tuesday 10th September




Back for a second run at Milton Keynes Theatre this puppet show could initially be mistaken for the muppets. But this is certainly not the Sesame Street that you’d want your children to watch any time soon.

The story follows Princeton who is a fresh-faced English graduate growing up and trying to find his purpose in life – a life of humans, puppets and some rather offensive songs which you can’t help but start singing along with. Who knew there would be a five minute song about what the internet is actually used for?

Intermixing puppet characters and human characters together on stage as if they co-exist in the real world worked really well. Initially I thought I would pay more attention to the puppeteers instead of the puppets but as the show went on the puppets stole the show with their great facial expressions that portrayed their feelings and intricate movements progressing the story (although some of these movements are a bit more risqué than others).

The set remains pretty much the same throughout – the only changes coming from different ‘doors’ opening to indicate a different setting and changes in lighting to portray a change of mood or pace. I feel this had mixed success as when some of the doors opened, they were quite small and it was quite hard to see what was behind each door.

The small cast were fantastic – many of them operating more than one puppet and seamlessly switched between each character making it appear there were more cast members than there actually were. Stand out character for me had to be Trekkie Monster with his crude songs and matching actions.

Avenue Q is at Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday 14th September.

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