Avenue Q by Hills Musical Company - Review

Avenue Q by Hills Musical Company - Review

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Posted 2018-11-16 by Haydn Radfordfollow

Fri 09 Nov 2018 - Sat 24 Nov 2018



Many of us would have grown up with the popular and renowned children's TV program Sesame Street and recognise its educational role and the joy and fun it provided kids of all ages. The Hills Musical Company's modern production of Avenue Q provides further proof that the Sesame Street characters can still provide plenty of laughs and entertainment for adults too. This is accomplished in a vastly different way with puppets and actors on stage manipulating a variety of engaging characters in lively musical numbers and delivering their dialogue. I have never been a fan of Punch and Judy puppet shows, but the performances in Avenue Q are so engaging and so skillfully done I couldn't help but enjoy and admire the actors' performances as well as the entertainment created by the puppets.



Director Gordon Combes has brought together a cast that presents an outstanding funny puppet musical, providing insight into a variety of different characters growing up and living in harmony and disharmony, while coming to terms with their life issues and challenges such as unemployment, loneliness, sexuality, being single and struggling with relationships.



The whole cast present amazing performances. In this adults-only production there are some wonderful hilarious moments when the cast can be foul-mouthed and have you roaring with laughter with songs like The Internet is for Porn by Trekkie, an enormous monster (Ian Buxton) and If You Were Gay by a closet gay, Rod (Ray Cullen) and his best friend and his housemate, Warren Logan).

I especially enjoyed the lover's triangle of Princeton (Michel Bates) and Kate Monster (Kate Hodges) and the ever-persistent sexy Lucy T. Slut (Shelley Crooks) coming between the young lovers. The extremely energetic, funny, familiar fornicating activities between the sexy Lucy T. Slut (Shelley Crooks) and Princeton (Michael Bates) was a highlight which had the audience, young and older, roaring with laughter.

The hilarious and inappropriate health advice from the Bad News Bears (Emma Wilczek and Vanessa Shirley) delighted the audience. In his colourful shirts, the loveable Brian (Mark DeLaine) was marvellous. Brian's wife, Christmas Eve (Jess Go-ong) gave outstanding comical performance along with her amazing strong vocals. Adding to the overall entertainment with some wonderful puppetry from James McCluskey-Garcia, Dylan Rufus, and Daniel Obie Vickers.



The colourful set reflects a New York street complete with garbage and has windows and doors which open to allow characters to enter and leave dwellings giving further depth and character to the colourful street scene.

This is a lively entertaining production with memorable and at times cheeky, politically incorrect, upbeat songs and raunchy performances that will surely appeal to audiences. I had only one minor concern when the volume was at times too high, but this could be easily rectified.



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!date 09/11/2018 -- 24/11/2018
%wnadelaide
146787 - 2023-06-13 23:47:27

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