Audiences at Sweet Dreams are greeted by the ambiguous statement "delicious lies within". It is unclear if we are promised treats or deceptions—possibly both.
Author Simon Wroe previously worked as a chef, which may have influenced his choice of subject matter. Wroe’s script concentrates on the mascots used by fast-food outlets to attract customers and portray a positive impression of their product. The script makes the uncomfortable conclusion that a cartoon fowl promoting the consumption of chicken products is effectively advocating cannibalism.
Since the early part of the 20th century, Chicky Ricky has been the mascot of the Real Good Chicken Company but his glory days are gone. As his appeal fades, corporate headquarters considers dispensing with his services. Chicky Ricky must journey into the dark heart of the corporate empire to confront those in charge and consider his options for remaining relevant.
Sweet Dreams is an immersive / promenade production staged at Aviva Studio’s Warehouse. The audience is cast as visitors to, or employees at, the Real Good Chicken Company. We are greeted by an effusive corporate advertisement in which a sexy porn star voice purrs they are just saying words intended to make us feel good. A visit to the factory’s corporate museum features comedic awards for finding unlikely parts of animals that would qualify as edible and advertisements and posters which move through the years to the present. Attention to detail is impressive—the company employee escorting us through the exhibits has her hand on heart when the corporate jingle plays.
In the museum, we are introduced for the first time to Chicky Ricky and other corporate mascots. Designed by McBess (Matthieu Bessudo) and converted into three-dimensional interactive artwork by Marshmallow Laser Feast, there is an old-fashioned, homemade tone to Ricky as if he has been knitted rather than hatched. By far the most disturbing mascot is a Little Orphan Annie rip-off named Penny Peckish. Made of plastic straws but looking like a well-worn, possibly discarded, rag doll (whose mouth is notably sewn up), Polly could have featured in a particularly cruel horror movie.
The vocal work on the mascots is excellent. Voiced by Munya Chawawa, Ricky is the bad-boy wise guy who cannot understand why anything has to change, while Morgana Robinson makes Polly sound defeated but surly and resentful. Reggie Watts as The Boss adopts an endlessly jocular tone even when spouting corporate doublespeak or scarcely veiled threats.
Sweet Dreams is immersive, at times almost overwhelmingly so. The penultimate scene in which Ricky is forced to consider evolving into a more modern brand is like a rock ’n’ roll concert with dry ice, blaring music and roving spotlights. The actual conclusion is, it has to be said, a bit of an anticlimax after such a build-up.
Although immersive, Sweet Dreams offers limited audience interaction. In the factory, we are dressed in hi-vis vests and instructed when to press buttons, but our actions do not affect the production process shown on-screen. Like public sector employees, we are paid little but allowed to scream for five seconds.
A dark humour runs through the production. When Ricky is bumped off, we are encouraged to attend his funeral (featuring an hilarious physical puppet, well, his talons) and respectfully season his body with salt. The factory leaves little to the imagination with devices labelled ‘evisceration’ and ‘head removal’.
The satirical part of the show climaxes with the audience seated on beanbags watching images projected on the walls and ceiling. The ethical dilemmas facing consumers are summarised, and we are hounded with options to allow us to find moral compromises which ensure profits can still be made. The sequence features a wonderfully grotesque creature who condescendingly boasts of being bred to appeal to the more discerning palate. The entire sequence feels like an extension of Burroughs’s concept of the ‘naked lunch’—the frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.
Like all shows at Aviva Studios, Sweet Dreams has sky-high production values and, like all immersive shows, it is uneven. The limited opportunities for audience interaction means we are passive, simply watching events which could have been viewed in a more comfortable theatre environment. Audience members are not encouraged to interact, so it is not a communal event. Nevertheless, the use of exaggerated, cartoon-style images is an effective way of satirising the excesses of the fast-food industry.