Review: Avenue Q at The Civic

Opening with the eternal question - 'what do you do with a BA in English?' - Avenue Q dispenses a bright and breezy antidote to the pressures of life in the big city.

The show takes its Q from the sassy, street-wise exuberance of Sesame Street and confronts the imponderable enigmas of our times with the grouchy straight-up attitude that you tend to get from fluffy glove puppets.

Like the child staring at the emperor's new clothes these impossibly cute bug-eyed monsters tell-it-like-it-is with brutally honest one-liners that demolish the sophisticated evasions of our post-modern, politically correct world.

Their insights range freely over cultural politics - "every-one's a little bit racist" and "the internet is for porn" - as well as delivering some uncomfortable home-truths about human relationships - "the more you love somebody the more you want to kill them".

Avenue Q embodies the kind of hybridity that brings together seemingly irreconcilable opposites: The ambience of wholesome kid's show somehow stretches to accommodate one of the raunchiest sex scenes you are likely to see on stage and the mood swings wildly between childlike naivety and world weary cynicism.

The puppetry itself is an intriguing symbiosis in which puppet and puppeteer deliver synchronised performances that amplify and complete the other's gestures.

Although the puppets are beautifully crafted the show never loses the DIY simplicity by which a few old socks with button eyes can conjure up a whole world.

Standout performances included Frank Hansen's double act as a starry-eyed idealist and a deeply repressed Republican.

Equally impressive was Natalie Alexopoulos, whose squeaky voice conveys an enormous range of emotions as she switches between a shy kindergarten teacher and a sexually aggressive cabaret singer. Cristina O'Neill delivers a show-stopping vocal performance with an operatic treatise on the nature of love.

The most impressive puppetry effects come from the Trekkie Monster, who shimmers and quivers like a Chinese dragon as he indulges his unhealthy passion for the internet.

The show concludes by affirming the value of community and brings the house down when a reference to New Zealand politics is inserted into the up-beat finale, echoing the wisdom of Ecclesiastes as it proclaims that an awareness of transience can help us to appreciate the simple pleasure of the here and now.

* Avenue Q is showing at The Civic until May 30.