Avenue Q the place that puppets call home

London's new musical Avenue Q now playing at the Noel Coward Theatre has been likened to an adult version of Sesame Street, but it is much more than that. This award winning theatre production, which opened on Broadway before making the jump to the London stage, features puppets living side by side with humans on the eponymous run down street.

Avenue Q would probably not be a place that you would choose to live if you had the money to live elsewhere. The stage set looks like a somewhat downmarket version of the familiar exterior shots used on popular American sitcoms. However it is the only place that our college graduate can afford. As fortune would have it he is befriended by a group of colourful characters who take him to the heart of their community as he searches for a meaning to his life.

For those people familiar with children's television, they will instantly identify the method of learning through song, in which much of the show is performed. However the songs in Avenue Q are more geared towards twenty and thirty something's trying to find their way in the big world. Songs such as "What Do You Do With A BA In English", "The Internet Is For Porn" and "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist", are just a selection of the songs that help the residents of Avenue Q question and understand the world a little bit better.

And what truly amazing residents there are in Avenue Q Kate Monster provides the essential love interest for our hero trying to find his way in the world, Rod lives with his best friend Nicky but has trouble coming to terms with his feelings and then there is Trekkie Monster who is obsessed with the adult only delights of the web. And that's without the human element!

The real and obvious fun with the stage production of Avenue Q is that it is unique. There is no other show in London's West End in which Bad Idea Bearspressure other characters into buying beer. Its adolescent enthusiasm warmly makes fun of the situation while still telling heart felt love story. It is a show that extends boundaries. Kermit and Miss Piggy would no doubt blush as some of the scenes and would probably not recommend it for young children, but Avenue Q is packed with fun, ingenuity and above all a good story line.