What do you do with a BA in English? You get a job at Spoonfed and you get invited to an Avenue Q puppet workshop people!
The Avenue Q tour arrives at Richmond Theatre on 28th February and after interviewing some of the cast and sitting in on a hilarious rehearsal, I was taught how to count to twenty using only my thumb, by none other than the godfather of puppetry that is Nigel Plaskitt.
Making its Broadway appearance in 2003, Avenue Q won numerable Tony Awards, and hit the West End in 2006. It posted its closing notices in 2010 after four and a half years of wondering out loud 'What do you do with a BA in English?' and whether the 'Internet is for Porn'. With a slew of colourful puppets and ballsy, politically incorrect songs, it tells the story of recent grad Princeton who moves to a street in downtown New York with few pennies in his pocket, and an affinity for weird and wonderful friends.
When I get to meet Nigel Plaskitt the muppet MacDaddy, he runs us through the basics of puppet manipulation. The self-taught puppeteer has had his hand up Monkey from the PG Tips advert, he worked on Labyrinth, Little Shop of Horrors, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and The Muppet Treasure Island to name a few. He is currently consulting on Betty Blue Eyes, due to open in the West End this March.
The first seemingly basic step when operating a hand puppet is to keep your fingers and thumb together in a kind of beak shape. Operating the puppet's mouth is a simple up and down movement, the way you'd mime a “quack”, but you can only move your thumb and you've got to keep in time to the number of syllables in a word – it's tough. Nigel has us count to twenty keeping our fingers completely still.
You then have to keep several other things in check. Don't let you wrist drift upward (the puppets head will follow) and don't let your thumb hang down or so will the puppets mouth. In the style of Avenue Q, and a lot of ventriloquists, you have to move with the puppet and think about the human traits you have to give it. Without the benefit of facial expressions, this requires a hell of a lot of practice. By the time the show hits the stage, coordinating the movements of the puppets with their own has become second nature to the actors. I now have a whole new respect for Nina Conti.
It's the straight-talking puppets that make this production so successful. Arina ii, part of the ensemble says: "Because they're puppets, and they're childlike, they're allowed to be a lot more truthful. Things like 'Everyone's A Little Bit Racist', they can say that and you sort of go, 'hmmm yeah'". Adam Pettigrew, a recent graduate who plays the not dissimilar Princeton adds: “They're not doing it in a bitter way, they're discovering it, they're discussing it." He continues, “You can read it as cynical but it's actually more about learning from your mistakes. Princeton doesn't necessarily find out what he wants by the end of the show but there's still hope there”. Katherine Moraz who plays Mrs T agrees, “the end number is positive, it's contented”
Looking at the lighter side of unemployment and homelessness, the musical uses puppets to draw on human nature but puts an untold strain on the actors. Adam speaks for everyone when he says “We all had that moment in puppet school where we thought this is going to be too hard”. Thankfully they persevered and the Avenue Q Tour will be at The Chruchill in Bromley from 14th to 19th February and at Richmond Theatre from 28th February until 5th March .
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