Image credit: Ikin Yum
Directed by Rachel O’Mahony
Part of S¡ck Festival
CONTACT MCR THEATRE
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Perfect Show For Rachel by ZooCo is a piece that glows with the kind of truthfulness most productions only gesture toward. It is equal parts a live theatrical experiment, a portrait of family and a celebration of difference – not difference as a hurdle to be explained, but as a source of humour, beauty, unpredictability, and creative force. If you’ve ever watched a piece of theatre and thought, “This could all be improved if a single audience member was given total creative control”, then Perfect Show For Rachel delivers your fantasy in all its anarchic, heart-squeezing glory.
At the centre of the show is Rachel, a Director with learning disabilities who lives in a care home. It is her wants, whims and wonderfully unfiltered decisions that shape the entire evening. The rules are simple: Rachel picks what happens next by pressing one of 39 buttons in front of her and everyone else – cast, crew, and a theatre full of wide-eyed onlookers have to get on board with her choices. There is something delightfully subversive about seeing seasoned performers waiting in earnest for Rachel’s next instruction like students waiting for the supply teacher to hand out stickers.
Image credit: Ikin Yum
The humour is baked into this unpredictability. One moment we’re in a nightclub, the next there’s a monologue about friendship or a skit about farts. Then we’re playing human skittles or at a Kylie Minogue concert. Watching the cast pivot gracefully (and sometimes less gracefully) from one idea to the next is half the fun; watching Rachel delight in her own power is the other half.
But beneath the joyful absurdity beats a genuinely moving heart. Perfect Show for Rachel is not just a gimmick, it’s a celebration of Rachel’s autonomy, creativity, and presence. The production quietly dismantles the idea that theatre needs to be controlled, polished or predictable to be meaningful. In fact, the show’s most affecting moments come precisely from its unpredictability: the tender pauses, the tiny negotiations, the shared laughter that ripples across the room when something goes unplanned and the cast doubles down with absolute sincerity.
The ensemble’s generosity is extraordinary. They listen, they follow, they honour each choice Rachel makes with unforced respect. The flexibility required is Olympian; the warmth is palpable. For a piece that could easily tip into gimmickry, ZooCo instead crafts something that feels radical in its simplicity: a show shaped by a woman whose voice is often overlooked in wider society, placed at the unarguable centre.
Perhaps the show’s greatest achievement is the way it quietly challenges traditional theatrical power dynamics. Who gets to decide? Who gets to lead? Who gets to be witnessed? Here, the answers are beautifully, deliberately redistributed. And in doing so, the production becomes more than a tribute. Instead it becomes an act of radical inclusion, woven through with affection and wit.
In the end, Perfect Show for Rachel is not “perfect” in the polished, predictable, dramaturgical sense. It’s perfect in a far more meaningful way: it’s honest. It’s alive. It’s a reminder that theatre is at its most thrilling when it surrenders to the messy, joyous logic of being human.
Live Art Alive 