WHETHER you’re the generation who grew up with The Muppets or not, everyone loves puppets – and this musical is all about puppets with attitude.

When Princeton the unemployed and lonely graduate moves into a new street, he quickly finds friends, both human and furred, to help him tackle life’s challenges, from dealing with unemployment to finding his purpose in life.

The residents of Avenue Q face the same issues we all do, but there are no holds barred in their approach.

Princeton falls in love, makes friends, helps his friends solve their dilemmas and all the while whirling through a series of quickfire songs that have the audience laughing out loud right from the start.

Though this is a show with lots of laughs, some of the songs are also designed to make you think, and even to be educational: not all writers would take on the challenge of portraying Schadenfruede in song, even with the help of a handy TV screen which helpfully spells the word out phonetically and gives you its definition.

My personal favourites are the Bad Idea Bears: who would believe something so cute and furry could have such a dark side? It’s a good thing that the little voice that tempts us all occasionally isn’t as appealing and easy to give in to as these little charmers.

Authors Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx wanted to create a show where puppets could say the things an audience might find difficult to take from actors.

They’ve certainly succeeded there, as the foam and furred characters challenge you to consider your preconceptions, perceptions and attitudes on a range of near-the-knuckle topics – from homosexuality to noisy sex, what the internet is really most useful for and how much time and energy one should invest in a relationship.

If the Muppets took puppetry to a new level, with their huge furry faces and almost-human attitudes, this show takes things a stage further, as the puppeteers are not hidden away, or trying to remain inconspicuous in their black costumes.

Instead they are out there, but mimicking the puppet’s movements, gestures and even vocals so closely that at times, in some of the songs, you can’t tell who is singing (the puppets have their own voice in some of the big numbers, at other times being voiced by their puppeteers).

The puppeteers’ skill is amazing. When you have two puppeteers working in tandem, as when Jessica Parker (also the show’s resident director/choreographer) takes on the ‘2nd arm’ to help bring Rod, Nicky or the Trekkie Monster to life, your eyes really struggle to accept that you are seeing two people working as one.

At the end of the show it’s the puppeteers, not the characters they portray, who take a bow, and they certainly deserved the thunderous applause.