HEREFORD Musical Theatre Company’s current production of Avenue Q – a musical unlike anything you’ll have seen before - is something of a departure for them – and it’s an inspired one.

Avenue Q has been a sell-out wherever it’s played since it first opened in 2003 and it certainly deserves to be a sell-out at The Tomkins Theatre, where it’s running until Saturday, May 2 (not Monday and Tuesday).

The residents of Avenue Q are all stuck – Princeton has no purpose, Kate Monster can’t get a date and Rod is in denial about who and what he really is, while the building super (intendent) is a man whose best seems to be behind him.

The genius of this show is to take the challenges we all face and, with each of the principals working their doppelganger puppet (think Sesame Street and you’re almost – but definitely not quite – there), the bleak realities of life post-college, struggling to make sense of it all, become moving and hilariously funny at one and the same time.

It’s something of a magic trick, the way the puppets pop the bubble of self-obsession and self-pity of all the characters and universal truths are revealed in a series of witty and incisive songs.

If you’re feeling a bit down, this is a show to lift you, make you laugh out loud – sometimes in disbelief at just what these benign looking puppets are up to – and, most importantly of all, demonstrate that we’re all in this together.

A truly talented cast ensured a night to remember – Olle Grove was a perfect piece of casting as the purposeless Princeton and Holly Clack (Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz) as Kate Monster was particularly moving as she closed the first act with There’s a Fine, Fine Line.

From George Swatridge and Lewis Booton as roommates Rod and Nicky to Louise Wynn-Mackenzie as the siren, Lucy the Slut and Trudy Connolly as Gary Coleman, from Josh Harris’s hilarious Trekkie Monster to Sarah Rowberry’s wonderful performance of When You Ruv Someone “So if there someone You are wanting so To kill ‘em.

You go and find him. And you get him.

And you no kill him.‘Cause chances good, he is your love.

And Kimberley Williams and Brad Longston as the Bad Idea Bears – they do what it says on the tin – every performance was nailed.

Add an inventive set, direction by Richard Davies, that ensured the show zipped along and energy levels stayed high, this really is one not to be missed.

Hereford may not see its like again for a while, which would be a real pity.

Avenue Q is at The Tomkins Theatre until Saturday, and from Wednesday, April 29 to Saturday, May 2.

Go to hmtc.org.uk to book your tickets.