I don’t know how to explain this without sounding like I should be sectioned, but the moment that first interlude played, I felt like I was home. Then the curtain rose and suddenly they were there. My long lost friends.

And just like that, I was back in a time before I had completely screwed my life up, when everything still felt possible, when this show got me through the death of my adoptive mother.

Yes, that is probably too deep for a musical about sexed up, foul mouthed puppets living in a Sesame Street world with real world problems. And yet, here we are.

I cried. A lot. Like that one aunt at every wedding.

Because underneath the racism, the objectification and the general chaos, there is real heart here. And it is funny. Properly funny. You will laugh. If you do not, I do not know what to tell you.

What Avenue Q does scarily well is hold a mirror up to life, then tear into how seriously we take it. Its central idea that everything is temporary should not be comforting, but somehow it is. We are all a bit racist, a bit broke, a bit desperate, and occasionally making terrible decisions. The show does not judge that. It just shrugs and cracks a joke.

It is simple. Which is exactly why it works. We are the ones overcomplicating everything.

Part parody, part love story, part complete and utter chaos, Avenue Q, with music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, directed by Jason Moore, still knows exactly what it is. This 20th anniversary revival does not mess with the core. There are small updates, mostly tech, but nothing that damages what people actually came to see. Relax. The Bible is still there.

Noah Harrison’s Princeton is all wide eyed optimism and loveable stupidity, while his Rod, yes you made that joke happen, is tightly wound and quietly scene stealing. Emily Benjamin tears through Kate Monster and Lucy, switching between sincerity and chaos without missing a beat. Across the board, the cast hit the tone exactly, no easy task when these characters are basically cultural shorthand at this point.

There are a few staging changes. I am sure the band used to be above the set. Now it is somewhere else. Moving in the right direction, I think. Some elements shift in ways that are slightly baffling, but nothing that pulls you out of it.

It is not flawless. No production is. A couple of beats do not quite land, even if it is difficult to pinpoint why. But it is hard to be critical of a show like this. You know what it is. You are in on the joke, and you are allowed to laugh, because it is funny.

Book tickets. Go. Laugh. Question your life slightly.

I would go again in a heartbeat, ideally without being stuck behind a man with spiky hair who could not keep his head still for more than thirty seconds. Genuinely impressive levels of movement. Act 2 was better once I escaped.