With little more than a minimal set – 2 chairs, a laptop, projector screen and a large gold paper-wrapped box entitled Mr Boon’s Big Box of Bits – it’s plain Mr Boon is an active proponent of the ‘just give them a box and they’ll be happy’ theory. 

First, a serious official type fellow in a white lab coat and wielding a clipboard (whom the children who have seen his previous work note bears a striking resemblance to Mr Boon) comes out to warm us up in amusingly pragmatic style. Having studied audience warm-up techniques on www.howtowarmupyouraudience.com (yep, I tried searching for it too), he struggles through a short set of bad jokes, audience participation and a new take on the classic Mexican wave. 

So the kids are already jeering at him and ready to party when the main event commences via typically cheesy theme music accompanied by a typically jolly voiceover announcer, welcoming us all to The Show Where You Can Win Big, But Probably Won’t! Children are pitted against each other in variations of conventional gameshow contests, involving spelling contests and celebrity identification and stuff like that; also general knowledge and a particular variation of charades that unspectacularly fails due to a crucial design flaw… 

The winner’s grand prize is the opportunity to slap a cream pie into Mr Boon’s scruffy, smart-alec face. The two sets of heats, the semi-emi final and Grand High Super Final are interspersed with a new phenomenon in theatre – commercial endorsements performed by the actor [Mike Boon]. And commented upon by Her husband and Her Majesty the Queen! So. 

Boon’s gregarious, laid back yet mildly haughty manner is carried with enough energy and empathy to have the children rocking along throughout the mad proceedings. The hour is fair packed with great comedic ideas in shameless lo-fi packaging, such as when unsuccessful contestants get to select from the Homebrand Peanut-Butter Jar of Warehouse Lollies. 

This homespun aspect seems at different points like calculated anticlimax, sometimes budget restriction and sometimes simply unpolished. In any case it is hilarious kidstuff, liberally infused with impulsive wit, general silliness and jokes your kids may well possibly repeat for a long time to come, plus the lollies. 
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