So I went to the Bexley RSL club on Stony Creek Road Bexley to see this play.
It is on a very busy road. Cars drive along it, some furiously, in a desperate hurry to get nowhere in particular. You cross it at your peril. The club itself displays a WWII Ordnance QF 25 pound Horwitzer Gun out the front. At least that is what I think it is. Then one mounts and walks over rather morose orange brown pavers to gain entrance and behold the club’s rather cavernous carpeted interior.
Inside there is a small segmented area for a theatre space.
That is where the dissimilarities between this production and its New York counterpart disappear, for it is a fine production by any standard of the musical.
I saw AVENUE Q (book by Jeff Whitty, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx) many years ago in New York. To be frank, I liked this performance better. It is full of heart and soul. This musical is about life. Its ups and downs. Its constant uncomfortable changes. It’s insurmountable difficulties , its self hatreds its despair and isolation. It is a story that must be told with humility compassion and total lack of pretension. With total honesty.
The Canterbury Theatre Guild can and should be justly proud of this production. It is not an easy one. The performers simultaneously must act, sing dance and be puppeteers. They all do this very well. Stand out performances are by Jessica James-Moody as Kate, Stefan Jamal as Princeton and John Edge and Edward Mafu as Trekkie. This is a well knit, tight production
So to those of you out in theatre land keep your eyes open for more performances from this theatre company. You might also enjoy the trip out to the Bexley RSL , to another era and set of values so alien to many of us today. I compliment them for their assistance in providing a venue for this memorably performed revival of the Broadway hit.
The Canterbury Theatre Guild’s revival of AVENUE Q played the Bexley RSL Club, 24 Stoney Creek Road, Bexley between the 20th and the 29th May.
http://www.canterburytheatreguild.com