WHAT a delightful children's show to mark all the World Cup fever that has asthmatic football fantasist Joey dreaming of Jamie Vardy, John Stones, Messi, Brazil's Marcelo and England Lioness Steph Houghton.

Schoolboy Joey (Danny Childs) is ten and today is his big day: cup final day, the day when he will score the winner and kick a football into space, higher than anyone before.

In Kate Bunce's wonderfully imaginative stage design for Leeds company Tutti Frutti, even the giant Moon on his bedroom chalkboard wall is a football, to go with all the space paraphernalia. White footprints frame the floor's edge – the steps of a footballer, maybe – and as his Mum (Eden Dominique) tries to wake him, he rolls out of his duvet on a giant exercise ball.

Childs, who had trials for Blackpool in his teens and is trained in dance too, has a balletic grace to complement Buster Keatonesque physical comedy skills, and Dominique is similarly athletic and fast moving around the stage, where football-inspired movement director Joel Daniels' playful influence is paramount.

Evan Placey's play for three year olds and upwards is an enchanting union of storytelling in rhyming couplets, electronic xylosynth musical accompaniment (and assorted acting cameos) by third player Vittorio Angelone and, above all, the aforementioned intricate physical interplay of Childs' Danny and Dominique's Mum to Dominic Sales's score.

Everything is football, football, football for Joey. He even turns the breakfast table into a football match with boiled eggs and soldiers transformed into goalies and outfield players, as Mum takes the first of multiple work calls, one of several hindrances that will threaten Joey's participation in the cup final. Off they go on a fraught, frenetic car journey with a toy car and chalk drawing the lines of roads on assorted black-topped items, just as Joey earlier drew a loo seat, penalty boxes and a centre circle.

In one particularly inspired moment in Wendy Harris's charmingly directed show, they chalk up a railway crossing and then enact the passing train. Mum and Joey must queue for Joey's asthma inhaler, wash the smelly team kit, rush frantically to the grocer for the half-time oranges, everything happening at ever-increasing speeds matched by Placey's witty, pared-back dialogue as kick-off approaches.

This may be a joyous children's show but adults who enjoy the comedic clowning of Mr Bean, Jeff Brown's Flat Stanley and football full stop will love it too. Fantasy football indeed.

And it all comes down to a penalty, as it so often does for England. He shoots....he...? Dream on.

Keepy Uppy, Tutti Frutti, York Theatre Royal Studio, today at 6pm; tomorrow, 11am and 1.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk