Henson Alternative's Puppet Up! - Uncensored

Puppeteers’ headshots project across two huge screens as audience members file into the packed-out Assembly Hall. With titles like The Sarah Silverman Program, Mr Show, Sesame Street, and the Men in Black franchise next to artists' names, the big, glossy, preemptive credits seem to promise extraordinary things; no one seems entirely sure what we're in for.

But extraordinary is precisely what we're given. Puppet Up isn’t the crude, late-night alternative to Big Bird and Snuffleupagus that you might think it is – at least not entirely. It’s an improv show that takes place in two dimensions: there are the performers we see on stage, clad in black, manipulating recognisably Henson-ish puppets. And then there are those screens, which display what you would generally see when watching televised puppetry – all bobbing, bantering puppets, their masters out of shot.

Seeing this extra axis highlights the raw artistry of Colleen Smith, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, Ted Michaels, Drew Massey and Allan Trautman, all of whom appear not only to be masters of their craft, but genuinely funny people. And although we're treated to some reenactments of Henson classics ('I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face' with a flesh-eating Tiki puppet is a particular highlight), most of the show is high-calibre improv. Workplaces and leisure sports are shouted out like any classic improv night, with the astonishing addition of Puppet Up's cupboard of hundreds of technicolor puppets – animals, humans, aliens. Hot-dog creatures hold a fire-breathing cult meeting. "Who doesn't like a good circle-jerk?" says a bicycle-riding crab.

An hour of wit, technique, and that trademark Henson dryness.