Avenue Q - Theatre Royal, Nottingham

If you’ve ever wondered about the hand life’s dealt you or the best way forward, then these wonderful puppets will point the way.

Their – at times – outrageous path through a section of their own lives may reveal the inspiration to help you through a troubled time too.

In that respect they owe an awful lot to The Muppets. Cleverly constructed puppets with carefully drawn characters who are, for the most part, knowledgable, well-meaning and of course fallible.

And it’s that fallibility which makes for such a great story in a comedy musical that’s now a worldwide hit.

From the off the songs tell us how ‘It Sucks to Be Me‘, thanks to new graduate Princeton, who turns up to live on Avenue Q with his new degree but no experience and no job.

One of his neighbours explains to another that he‘d still love to be a friend ‘If You Were Gay’ and then the adult realities of life are hammered home with the delightfully-written and performed ‘Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist’.

Are you starting to get the picture? Maybe not: this is by no means a “right-on” morality tale. It’s an adult show with the F-word just five minutes in. Human actors share the stage with puppets and puppeteers – and the mix works well!

We get a puppet vamp, puppet nudity and even puppet sex. But it’s not as outrageous as you might imagine. Hilarious, yes – but not indecent or even titillating.

There is some outrageous talent among the puppeteers though, with Katherine Moraz, Chris Thatcher and Sam Lupton among the leading lights.

So we witness a tender love story, a tale of true friendship and learn that ‘There is Life Outside Your Apartment’, but find that ultimately, many people never find the purpose Princeton seeks.

Does he find what he’s looking for? Why not give this a whirl and see for yourself? The show runs until Saturday with tickets available at all prices.