"Avenue Q" by Your Chance Productions.

Mountsorrel Memorial Centre, Loughborough.

This is my first visit to the Mountsorrel Memorial Centre and what a lovely place it is, complete with cafe and bar and a bright and airy seating area to wait for before the theatre auditorium opens for the show.

I've seen "Avenue Q" quite a few times now, so knew exactly what to expect. Well, that is correct up to a point, because this production is slightly different. All the other productions I'd seen had the full animated sections on TV screens. There was none of that, but the lack of these features didn't make any difference. There was also one other thing that was different as well, which I'll get to later.

Puppets, songs, a heart-warming story of a graduate fresh out of university looking to find his purpose in life – and finding a girl along the way. A show that’s fun for all the family.

Wrong! Very wrong!

"Avenue Q" is enormous fun but with songs like ‘The Internet (is for porn)’ and a puppet sex scene (which is hilarious by the way), this show is strictly for adults and in no way like any puppet show at any kids party I’ve been to.

The musical centres on Princeton, an arts graduate and therefore out of a job (What do you do with a BA in English). Trying to find a cheap enough place to rent, he finds Avenue Q and meets a host of wonderful characters.

These including Kate Monster who dreams of opening her own monster school, the humans Brian and Christmas Eve, and Gary Coleman – the child actor off Different Strokes who is now down on his luck and the superintendent at Avenue Q. ( I don’t think it’s giving anything away by saying that this isn’t THE Gary Coleman) and that is the other difference in this version. In the other shows, Gary Coleman is played by a human, as a human. In Your Chance's show Gary Coleman as a puppet is introduced. There's also a porn obsessed monster, a couple of male puppet characters who live together, a pair of little bears who keep coming up with "fun" ideas and a buxom lady puppet who relishes in her own independence, if you know what I mean.

There are some very funny, and non PC songs in "Avenue Q" and, even though I've seen the show several times previously and know the soundtrack well, this show still makes me laugh as if it were a new show to me. Songs like "Everyone's A little Bit Racist", "It Sucks To Be Me", "The Internet Is For Porn", "If You Were Gay", "My Girlfriend Who Lives In Canada" and "You Can Be As Loud As Hell You Want (When You're making Love)" sit well alongside gentler songs like "There's A Fine, Fine Line" and "The More You Ruv Somebody".

Puppetry is a very special style of performing and takes quite a bit of rehearsal. Your arms ache from holding them in a certain position, as do your hands. You have to become as one with your puppet and take on the personality of the puppet. No different there then to taking on any other character in a play, but with the puppet being the focal point, the actor has to become almost invisible, leaving the voice and personality to take over. If you've not seen this musical before though, you'll see that the actors almost morph into the puppet, expressing visual reactions as if they were the puppet themselves. An art form and skill indeed.

Another thing that this production has in common with every other production of the show I've seen is the way the cast work as a well oiled machine and that there is no way that any one of the cast is able to stick out from the cast crowd. One, because the puppets are the stars, and secondly, this is an ensemble show where to make the show a success, every one of these actors have to work as one. And they do, brilliantly. They all have their moments to shine. It's like the cast are a finely tuned orchestra, and if maybe one of the orchestra plays out of tune, you'd notice. This orchestra is of Philharmonic level.

Richard Kish (Princeton), Emma Barnes-Marriott (Kate Monster), Graham Buchanan and Max Eaglefield (Nicky), Thomas Levi (Rod), Darrel Parker (Trekkie Monster), Chantelle Ruston (Christmas Eve), Martin Weston (Brian), Gem Blake (Gary Coleman), Philippa Buchanan (Mrs T), Max Eaglefield (Lucy The Slut) Philippa and Graham Buchanan (The Bad Idea Bears) and Wil Morgan ( Ricky/The Newcomer), were all excellent and completely in tune with each other.

Directed by Jessie McLean, assisted by Becky Morley. Directing a musical is quite different to directing a play, be it comedy or straight, and this is Your Chance Productions' first musical. Jess and Becky made it seem like this wasn't their first musical rodeo because everything about this musical was spot on; you'd have thought that this was just another successful show they had directed. It's another show that Your Chance can list as being another one of their highly entertaining successes. This is also the first time that your Chance have performed in the MMC, so they also had that to roster into their directing duties.

Musical Director is Ryan Latham, assisted by Martin Lewis who have both obviously invested a lot of time and work with the cast. The songs are great fun and a lot of them involve several cast members, so getting those harmonies right has taken time; but that time taken has paid off because the sound of this cast, together and separately is excellent. Getting the right feel of the vocals, the comedy, the sultriness, the softness and especially the tone and accents of the character's voices with these songs is not an easy ride, but Your Chance don't opt for easy rides.

Choreographed by Becky Morley, you may think that with this show being mainly puppets that choreography isn't as important as any other musical, but to make the puppets look choreographed, the puppeteers have to have the choreography down as second nature because they also have to make their characters seem to move and dance. Moving and performing choreography makes these actors multi skilled as well as multi talented. It also means that extra thought and work is applied by a choreographer, and Becky has done a sterling job because I very rarely looked at the actors behind the puppets.

The set design is also slightly different to some of the set designs for this show that I'd seen in the past. A clever revolving section in the three main set sections of the houses in the avenue meant that we could see, and be inside the houses on Q. This in particular worked very well with the bedroom scenes.

Sound is by David Phillips of CORE - Production Services, and was lovely and clear. I could hear every word and the balance in the songs was also extremely well done.

Lighting by Abby Catto. I have always said that simplicity is always good, and when there's no need for fancy lighting techniques, that simple lighting design always works well. Nothing fancy is needed in this musical and the design used was perfect for this show.

The stage crew do a fine fine job led by Vicki Eaglefield.

The puppets are all designed by Paul Jomain of Q Puppets. Every puppet from the large Trekkie Monster to the puppet boxes and Bad idea Bears, through to the new Gary Coleman puppet were instantly recognisable, and who couldn't fail to fall under Lucy's buxom spell?

Throughout their run at MMC, Your Chance Productions are supporting Inspirative Arts, a health and wellbeing charity who support vulnerable people through arts therapy with this production, so if you've any spare cash, just fold it up, put it in one of the supplied mini envelopes, provided before you go in, and pop it in their collection receptacles when requested during the show.

"Avenue Q" is at the MMC in Loughborough until Saturday 29 June and includes explicit content and puppet nudity, so may not be suitable for little monsters under the age of 14. make it your Purpose to see this show this weekend.

Photos courtesy of Oolay Photography