Hilarious West End show is a coup for Coventry theatre

ALTHOUGH puppets are not really my thing and the Muppets a blurred and very distant memory not revisited since my early childhood, I found this show hilarious - and I could see around me that I was in good company.

A real coup for the Belgrade, this highly successful touring West End production brings to life a tale of post-university blues for a bunch of New York twenty-and-thirty-somethings. Included are highly topical issues, including unemployment in the young, homophobia, racism and homelessness.

While admittedly rude and outrageously cheeky - with songs including Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, The Internet is for Porn and (possibly my favourite) Schadenfreude - this bouncy, lively musical is not offensive or distasteful because the satire is so obvious. Think Spitting Image more than South Park, even though the crassness is on a similar level to the latter.

In the programme, Sam Lupton, who plays Princeton, writes: “I love it because it’s so honest and it commentates on nearly everybody’s life. I challenge people to see it and say that none of it applies to them. At least some of it will apply to every single person who comes to see it.

“It can be so honest without being controversial because it’s puppets and people are drawn in by them - it reminds them of childhood.”

His words ring so true - thanks in a big way to the infectious enthusiasm and mockingly childish behaviour and moves of the extremely talented cast, some of whom effortlessly managed to puppeteer two characters at once. Katharine Moraz in particular played a wonderfully sultry and alluring Lucy the Slut and impressed with her amazing singing.

If strong language and very adult themes are not for you, this show should probably be avoided - but for everyone else, this is really good fun and well worth seeing.

Sundari Sankar