Get your puppeteer to clap your fuzzy hands! At last, a New Zealand production of the hit musical that is a riotous, giggle-till-you-wet-your-knickers adult send-up of Sesame Street.

All who grew up with Sesame Street’s sing-along tunes and easily absorbed life-lessons, innocently accepting furry monsters as one of the many races that make up New York, are sure to relish this cutely subversive parody. 

The storyline is very simple, even traditional. Kids watching Sesame Street were assured they were ‘special’, and encouraged to think if they wanted something hard enough, it would be theirs. The dwellers on Avenue Q have finished their education and started real life, only to find they are not special after all, dreams don’t come true so easily, and finding a purpose in life is not that straightforward.

Purpose in life? Having just reviewed Waiting for Godot I can’t but be struck by a certain similarity of theme, however differently explored.

The trick in Avenue Q of course is that having ideas expressed and acted out by puppets gives enough distance for us to examine our fears and prejudices without feeling self-conscious or threatened. Puppets can say things that people can’t. Brings things like masturbating to internet porn out into the open. So to speak. And in terms of humour, revisiting childhood with the cynicism of adulthood is usually a winner, like Daisy Pulls It Off which so successfully parodied the ‘jolly hockey sticks’ girls’ boarding school stories of the 1920s. 

The Fortune’s team under Shane Anthony does an absolutely fabulous job: singing, dancing and manipulating their puppets, beautifully crafted by Julian Southgate, with polished ease. These are not the classical bunraku puppets worked by almost mystically invisible puppeteers. Here the handlers are fully lit and use their faces as energetically as their voices, which is an advantage as the puppets’ faces are pretty rigid.

They are after all copies of the Sesame Street puppets which were designed to be as much like cartoon characters as possible, compared with, say, The Muppet Show’s Kermit, a sock puppet with a wonderfully mobile mouth that could indicate any mood, however subtle. 

It is therefore all the more important that these skilful handlers are so well worth watching. It is hard to believe that such complex staging could have come together so smoothly in the brief rehearsal time professional theatre allows.

Cameron Douglas is pleasantly clean-cut as the hero Princeton, new arrival on Avenue Q, trying to make a start in life armed with a useless B.A. He is quickly attracted to Kate Monster, whose dream is to found a school just for monsters. Kate is one of the puppets operated by the splendidly versatile Kelly Hocking, who doubles as Lucy the Slut, a blonde temptress in blue sequins and pink feather boa. 

The handlers make Princeton and Kate a winsome couple; as they lurch through the fairly wobbly plot you really do want them to find each other, on the top of the Empire State if that’s necessary.

But in the meantime they are helped or hindered by a host of delightful potty-mouthed characters, from uptight closeted gay Rod and his kindly roomie Nicky to disgusting porn-obsessed Trekkie Monster. Then there are the Bad Idea Bears who get people into trouble while looking cutely innocent, and the prettily named Mrs Thistletwat, all of them jauntily manipulated by Kathleen Burns and Kyle Chuen. 

There is also a human couple, cheery out-of-work comedian Brian (a likeable Jonothan Martin) and Christmas Eve, his adorable Asian-American fiancée memorably played by Cassie Baker. To his credit an ebullient Rob Enari pulls off a weird gag involving TV guest stars that has the super played by ex child star Gary Coleman (as a living example of how life can disappoint despite the promise of youth).

This cast of seven work miracles, but peak in the legendary Explicit Puppet Sex Scene, which is brilliant and titillating, despite a complete and utter lack of actual genitals. 

I love the set, I want to live on it. Created by Peter King and Matt Best to resemble brownstone buildings cunningly rendered at 80 % human size, it is quite perfect, seedy and charming at the same time. Shabby, multicultural Avenue Q is a long way down the list from posh Avenue A, but it does exemplify the American neighbourhood that has to be supportive because everyone lives on top of everyone else. (Unlike N Z suburbs!) Like an advent calendar, the set boasts many windows and doors so puppets can pop in and out, as in a Punch and Judy show. 

The music is terrific, the singing accompanied by a hardworking band under the able directorship of Michael Lee Porter. It makes all the difference to have the thrill of live music, hang the expense! All the songs are irresistibly catchy, and everyone will have their favourite. Hard to choose between ‘Fuck, it sucks to be me’, ‘Everyone’s a little bit racist’ and ‘The internet is for porn’ (‘Grab your dick and double-click!’), but I like ‘Schadenfreude’ which cheerfully admits that we all feel better when we see someone worse off.  

Despite the filthy language frequently used by these naughty puppets, Avenue Q actually preaches the same wholesome messages as Sesame Street about tolerance and helping others. Most of songs are about honestly facing up to your flaws so (hopefully) you can amend them. (Some people of course, simply enjoy revelling in their shame, which explains those who sing along with ‘A bit racist’ as if it’s something to be proud of!)

The conclusion seems a bit much like those signs in therapists’ offices for when all else fails: ‘This too will pass’. But the jubilant cast manages to make even compromise seem perky bouncy fun, disarming cynicism. 

Avenue Q may not have a radical message but it’s a clever concept with immense charm. And hilarious: most of the audience were helpless with laughter from start to finish. You’d have to be curmudgeonly indeed not to join the revelry – which makes me think of one of my favourite muppet lines, delivered by Kermit as a gaggle of muppets danced off stage after a rousing number, ‘Nice gambol!’ to which their reply was, ‘If you like our gambolling, you should see us at full frolic!’   

This is full frolic. Enjoy. 
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