Perfect Show for Rachel: Review

She’s gone international. She’s multi award-winning. She got five stars in The Guardian, and she doesn’t give one jot. You will never see a show like this again – and that’s the promise of Perfect Show for Rachel, co-produced by Zoo Co and Improbable. From pub brawls EastEnders’ style to a snack cabaret, the latest spectacle to hit Contact Theatre is inimitable in its raw hilarity.

Perfect Show For Rachel Photo by Ikin Yum

The show is steered by Rachel O’Mahoney – a learning-disabled woman with an equal adoration for both theatre and her sister’s boyfriend. Tearing from scene to scene before a panel of 40 buttons (Rachel insists two), the audience can only cling on for the ride as performers bend over backwards to her beck and call. Amid a whirlwind of tangled limbs and slapstick shenanigans, even Rachel’s family – sister Flo and mum Wendy – are given no shortcuts as all rules of theatre are hurled out the window – sometimes along with members of the cast, too.

Beginning with greetings from the team, audience members are introduced to Rachel, who we are warned has only a moderate risk of leaving the show halfway through to go to McDonald’s. The exceptional cast members are already stretching in preparation for their first orders from the captain, currently grinning in an armchair before a specially built tech desk. Angled walls beckon towards a fantasy version of Rachel’s living room (designed by Stella Backman), covered in splattered paint, glitter, and graffiti.

And then suddenly, hand meets button – and what follows is a display of artfully curated chaos.

After over a decade of work between Rachel and Flo – who is also the artistic director – Perfect Show for Rachel is a masterclass in disabled inclusivity done well. The show demands audiences and venues adapt to where disabled performers are at, rather than the other way around. With the cast featuring a mix of deaf and hearing performers, particular effort was made to make everyone feel understood – and for Rachel to be truly in charge. All performances come relaxed as standard, and BSL and live captioning are available even while improvising. Within a churning climate of welfare cuts and continued stigma, Perfect Show for Rachel spotlights what the world has to gain when disabled people are made welcome in the theatre world.

Under Rachel’s direction, the initial mayhem quickly falls through to a well-crafted theatrical carousel. More than wit, it’s the earnestness of her decisions that compel. From throwing her mother into the air Dirty Dancing style to firing the sole musician halfway through, decisions aren’t made to entertain – they’re made because to Rachel, they’re simply right. To her taste – though perhaps not to some others’ – scenes restart, repeat, or are cut through entirely on a whim, and every show is guaranteed to be unique.

The show may best be avoided if you’re not a fan of potential audience participation. A special congratulations is in order for Jackson, Flo’s endlessly-patient, real-life boyfriend, who became a highlight of the show despite not being officially part of it. Having endured flirtation, being ‘put to bed’, and being commanded to get onstage, fall over, and loudly moan for an entire act, this particular performance set a high bar for what looks to be a spectacular tour.

In that same breath, the improvisation skills of the cast are to be commended, with bouts of razor-sharp unscripted wit sending funny moments into the stratosphere. It’s clear the production was driven as much by a genuine delight in Rachel’s ideas as it was by a love for the stage. Perfect Show for Rachel is as close as you can get into the raw imagination of a stranger, and is a real tombola of a performance – “Well done, Rachel!”