When I was a little kid, my sister and I used to snuggle up
on the couch with our eiderdowns to watch
Sesame Street ,
on a Saturday morning before my folks woke up. We loved it! It was so cool compared to
English T.V. Created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, the street had puppets/muppets produced by Jim Henson,
monsters, cartoons, real people and children. It was way ahead of it’s time
back then. There were learning
opportunities embedded into it yet it was quite humorous. Letters, numbers, positional language,
vocabulary, spelling and cultural diversity were being dripped into our brains
whilst our parents slept.
It featured many regular characters which I will
never forget. That was back in the 70’s. Sesame street is still very popular
with children today.
Avenue q is a musical parody of Sesame Street but otherwise, totally
unrelated. It opened in Broadway in 2003 and has been very successful in the West End. I went to see it at the Kings Theatre Portsmouth on tour this week. The writers of
Avenue q were inspired to make a show about post graduate
life. It painted a bleaker picture of how shit life is when you’re a grown up. The book was written by Jeff Whitty and the musical was compiled by Robert Lopes and Jeff Marx. It was absolutely
hilarious and so well put together. Some of the characters were obviously based
on specific ones from Sesame street .
If you were a big fan like me you will spot them easily.
At first I didn't know how I was going to focus on the
puppets. They were just head and shoulders. The puppeteers were very skilful in
the way they operated them and acted alongside. They wore grey so they wouldn't
upstage them and with the music, the story and the humour, it was so effective.
All the characters were cute and cuddly with cringy
voices as in any kids show. The songs were jolly and cheesy. However the content had a subtle shock
factor.I guess cute puppets can get away with controversial
subjects without being taken too seriously. Each song was more daring than the last. I wondered how much bolder it could get in the second half.
It covered Racism, homosexuality, pornography and
schadenfreude which is German for feeling happy at someone else’s expense. It raised the issue of commitment in a
relationship which so typically young men are afraid of. It contained graphic
puppet nudity and sex scenes. The second half was actually kind of heart
warming as I began to empathize with the characters.
A really great show but don't take your children or your mother in law to see it.
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