Something a bit different this Sunday – some thoughts about a show, but not really a review because it’s a bit more than that but also there’s nothing for you to book right now.
I took this photo at the end of the Avenue Q 18th birthday concert last month. I said on my Instagram that I think it might be the best photo I’ve ever taken – the cast looking back at their younger selves at the end of the show. That it’s a good photo I know because most of the cast have used it in their Instagram posts about the show, which made my theatre nerd heart happy. That I was in the position to take such a good photo is down to being quick on the booking fingers when the tickets went on sale – and snagging us prime seats in the middle of the middle of the stalls for the matinee show.
Who is us in this context? Well it’s me and my little sister. The West End production of Avenue Q opened just as I was finishing university, and as she was doing her A Levels. I think every theatre geek has a couple of shows that are formative in their development as a theatre fan, and this was one for us. It wasn’t the one that got us into the world of theatre message boards, but it resonated with us at the points in our lives that we were at at the time. If you’ve never come across Avenue Q, it’s a comedy musical that tells the story of a new graduate, Princeton, who moves to New York to start his adult life and ends up living on Avenue Q – a sort of grown-up Sesame Street and through the show he learns life lessons from people and puppets. One of the writers went on to write Book of Mormon, and the music for Frozen (and Frozen 2). It premiered on Broadway in 2003 and it actually beat a little show you might have heard of called Wicked to the Best New Musical Tony in 2004.
I saw the original cast three, maybe four times, and then saw it on Broadway with Little Sis on our five days seven shows trip a year or two later, and again in London with Him Indoors a few years after that. One of those times I saw the original cast I took my then boyfriend, who subsequently blamed it as a factor in our break up for “giving you ideas about needing a purpose”* which was… a stretch. Anyway. Moving on. It’s a show that has a special place in my heart. And it was wonderful to go back to it and see it again, with the actors we loved that first time. Twenty years after its first production there are some things that haven’t aged that well – they did a disclaimer at the front to that end, which felt sensible – but there’s so much that’s wonderful and the nostalgia factor was great too.
And the other thing about Q is how well the original cast have gone on to do. Jon Robyns who played Princeton has just finished up a run as The Phantom in Phantom of the Opera. Simon Lipkin is about to play Fagin in Oliver! in the West End after a successful run Chichester in the summer. Giles Terera has pack of awards for his theatre work – including an Olivier for originating Aaron Burr in the West End production of Hamilton. The only original cast member who couldn’t make the reunion was Clare Foster – and that was because it was opening week for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in which she’s playing the female lead.
Sometimes its hard to tell if seeing a show that you have such fond memories of will enhance your memories or detract from them – we actually avoided seeing a revival of one of the other shows that was seminal for the two of us a summer or two ago because we were worried that it would taint our memories of it – but I’m not sure we ever really worried about this one because it was the original cast and it was billed as “in Concert” although it was more staged than that suggests. So it was great to see the band back together and be reminded how good they are and how fun the show is. And for me and Little Sis it was great timing too – this was our last theatre outing before she has a baby and so seeing a show that means so much to us but that is also about new beginnings and new possibilities was a great way to mark a bit of a moment in both of our lives.
I hope you have a show you have as happy memories of as I do Avenue Q, and that you get the chance some day to have a moment like we did at the Stephen Sondheim for this.
*Other things he blamed: “those books you read and films you watch for giving you ideas about happy endings”. I hope your eyes are rolling as hard as mine are.
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