MARSDEN company Mikron Theatre deliver theatre with an ecological message by canal, river and road.

Their narrowboat season on Britain's waterways will follow soon but first they are parking up their van at such equally unconventional locations as the Scarcroft Allotments, where Willy Hoedeman and his fellow allotment holders welcomed Mikron for the third year on Tuesday.

The sun made an an appearance, so too did impromptu tea, coffee and cornflake flapjack stalls and the Two Hoots solar-powered ice cream trike, normally to be found at Millennium Bridge.

Two Hoots would surely have met the approval of Papa Granelli, one-time king of Italian ice-cream makers, or rather gelato makers (and the difference is explained by writer and lyricist Deborah McAndrew, whose "farm-fresh, full-fat, Fair Trade fable" deserves a few more letter Fs: fast, fantastic, factual yet fun featre, I mean theatre).

The ghost of Papa (York actor-musician John Holt-Roberts) visits his son Harvey (Nicholas Coutu-Langmead), who decides to jack in his dull council job to undertake the ultimate odyssey: to re-create the perfect gelato from Papa's recipe book. Mirroring Homer's Greek drama, he must leave behind his Thistledale beekeeping girlfriend Maud (Esther-Grace Button) to travel the world via encounters with his miserable gorgon mother (Jill Myers) and Papa's bit on the seaside (Myers again) at Bridlington.

Onwards he ventures to his Tuscany grandmother (Button) to learn of the wonders of proper milk and cream and a Brazilian sugar farm, where Holt-Roberts's farmer piles up the drinks and his temptress daughter (another joyous Button cameo) is even more intoxicating.

"O, sweet surrender," goes the singalong song – one of a handful of winning tunes by Conrad Nelson – but Harvey somehow stays cool. Instead the audience, gathered under gazebos, surrenders to the gelato delights of an Olwen May production that is the cream of outdoor summer theatre. Irresistible.