Mr Freezy tells the epic tale of Scoopy, a young ice cream scoop who lives in an ice-cream van. Scoopy is finding it difficult to learn his trade and wonders if there is more to life than scooping ice cream anyway. The ordinary slips into the extraordinary for Scoopy when his mother is abducted and taken to Prong City. With prompting from Mr Freezy, the van guardian, he takes the long road to find her, meeting fierce and friendly creatures along the way.

The show begins with a slow, sleepy start, lulling the audience into a false sense of peace and quiet. This is short lived. Once the milkshake flavours are flowing and the ice cream is flying all over the front row of the audience, the crazy antics are in full swing through to the end of the show. The creative team has successfully fixated on utensils, food and packaging found in ice cream and hot dog vans, creatively transforming inanimate objects into larger than life characters, creating chaos in the process. The idea starts with puppetry and object manipulation which leads to food fights, slapstick, fart jokes and visually clever theatre. An audience member’s reaction to a particular slapstick moment by Sam Routledge was, “He didn’t really hurt himself did he?” From a twelve year old, that’s high praise indeed!

On the surface the performance looks like an anarchic mess of chaotic crazy nonsense with food fighting thrown in for good measure. But beneath the smear of donuts and sprinkles is a group of highly skilled performance makers working with great precision both physically and thematically, telling an archetypal tale of adventure, coming of age and becoming an ice cream scoop who really can scoop ice cream!

The classic story structure begins with the introduction of the hero’s world, followed by his epic quest and the fulfillment of his journey with the rescue of Mamma and finally the arrival home. A story that is familiar and satisfying with a hint that the Mr Freezy adventure may well continue beyond the show. The performers’ presentation of the work is focused, cheeky and highly energetic, an absolute pleasure to watch. They move from ice cream van servers to animators of their characters seamlessly and the gibberish with the odd sprinkling of English tells a full story packed with emotion.

Aspects of the performance have been inventively explored, to the end of all possibilities it seems and still the work leaves you wanting more, a pointer to the successful working relationship between creators, director and dramaturge. Paper cups and milkshakes morph into speedway entertainment, hot dog prongs turn evil, potato peelers become thugs and Scrappy the food scoop and his family becomes the Robo-Chicken savior.

Jonathan Oxlade’s design is entirely of the world of an ice cream van with a strong hint of nineteen-fifties. The world inside the van successfully depicts a safe warm haven with plenty of room for chaos and mania while the “outside” spaces are well constructed to depict the harsh, scary places Scoopy encounters on his journey. Kelly Ryall’s music supports these inner and outer worlds and heightens the emotional ride of the story with sparse sound juxtaposed with great crescendos heightening those scary moments. The lighting emphasizes both the emotional and physical landscapes with dexterous illumination of space.

The show is for 5-12 year olds and there appeared to be that spread in the audience who thoroughly enjoyed themselves. As soon as liquid started to ooze and food began to fly, the front row of five year olds shuffled forward to the edge of the mats for a better look. There were smatterings of laughter as different moments appealed to different humours. The young audience particularly appreciated the first part of the show with pumps squirting goo and familiar objects doing all manner of socially unacceptable things. The twelve-year-old desire for a good tale of adventure was fulfilled as the epic of Scoopy swelled to mass proportions. Threads of adult humour were interwoven for the adults in the audience: Mamma popped an aspirin when it all got too much; Scoop witnessed Desiree Potato at the centre of a Romeo and Juliet balcony scene which concluded with the Capulet patriarch coming down on Romeo like a tonne of bricks – with a potato masher of course.

All in all Mr Freezy is fun, anarchic, funny, contemporary theatre yet it has a traditional story of loss, bravery, triumph against the odds and attainment of belonging at its core which the creative team has skillfully interwoven. The mix obviously strikes a chord with the appreciative audience. The aesthetics of the show have a familiar vibe for audiences steeped in a life of electronic media. It is wonderful for a young audience to experience such entertainment live on stage.

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