Classy amateurs bang on target as follow-up act

AVENUE Q, Oldham Coliseum (to Saturday)

AND they call it puppet love: keen-eyed readers should realise this isn’t a crafty repeat of my review of this same comedy musical no more than a fortnight ago.

The previous production was the current national tour, and very funny it was, too. This is Congress Players’ amateur production, for charity, niftily bagged before the tour was announced (otherwise it wouldn’t be happening), and it stands up remarkably well given the fresh memory.

“Avenue Q”, as many might know, is a mix — in the style of “Sesame Street” — of puppets and human performers/operators, the latter mostly receding into the background as the puppets take centre stage.

It sounds a bit childish but it’s a liberating, rude, modern and very funny trawl through relationships, modern-day worries over love, life, “purpose” and much else besides, all delivered with a worldly, tongue-in-cheek satirical humour that is genuinely funny and sharp.

Congress treat the show well: Nick Angus’s production had a few first-night, stop-go moments but the whole is well cast and played in the right spirit — assisted by professional-looking puppets highly similar to those of the pro show, plus a nicely-decorated set, (mostly) good lighting and Paul Firth’s terrific band.

Gary Jones-McCaw and Sarah Thewlis play the main puppets, Princeton and Kate Monster, with good comic timing, personable characterisation and strong voices, but they don’t have things all their own way. Jon Crebbin in the minor but significant role of the porn-addicted Trekkie Monster makes the most of his role and Dawn Leigh pretty much steals the show as Christmas Eve, the Japanese therapist.

With song titles ranging from “The Internet is for Porn”, “It Sucks to be Me” and “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”, the show isn’t for the young and is never going to win any humanitarian awards. Which is lucky for us.

The one thing standing in this production’s way at the moment is the sound: more than most shows, this one relies on the audience hearing and laughing at every funny word, and it’s actually quite hard to understand some of the lines because the sound just isn’t clear enough when it matters. Otherwise, this is one of the company’s better shows of recent years.