Theatre

'Everyone feels a little empty inside,' sing the cast of Broadway smash 'Avenue Q'. In the case of half of them, that's not surprising: they're puppets. That's the big idea of creators Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, who wanted to create a musical for people who don't like musicals – but do like 'The Muppets'. The result, in Jason Moore's production, is very easy to enjoy. It starts out like 'Sesame Street' meets 'South Park', displaying its sharp, unsentimental credentials in song after amusing song: 'If You Were Gay', 'The Internet is For Porn', and one number in which a Japanese woman memorably informs us, 'evelyone's a rittle bit lacist.' But the cynicism is only ever skin deep. These stories of individuals in search of a purpose, and of love, become increasingly heartfelt. Yet anyone with a heart will be only a little less charmed by the show's sweet-natured tales of twenty- and thirty-something confusion than by the wisecracking that precedes them.