Perfect Show For Rachel

★★★★★ “Why can’t more theatre be like this? Open, relaxed, fun and full of love” – The Guardian

Rachel is a theatre-loving, enigmatic, learning-disabled 35 year-old who loves Kylie, heckling her sister, and seeing people falling over. At the touch of a button she commands the action, each scene brought to life by a skilled cast ready for whatever she asks of them. From bar room brawls to a bourbon biscuit cabaret. Perfect Show For Rachel is a “joyous celebration of theatre without the rules” (★★★★ The Stage) combining physical theatre, live music, family memories, massive fights and fart jokes in an electric, moving and triumphant tapestry. Step into Rachel’s unique, often hilarious world in this critically acclaimed show.

The show explores what happens when we put Rachel up front as our leader and empower her to live direct a show that is perfect for her. She has an accessible Tech desk with a menu of up to 50 different buttons that she can press and it controls everything, light, sound, video projection, captions, the cast, everything comes from that desk. The whole entire play really depends on Rachel which button or number she decides to pick. 

“Audiences can expect to see something genuinely really different to kind of any shows that they’ve seen before.” Flo O’Mahony

★★★★ “A disarming labour of love” – The Times 

A short series of excerpts from a blog piece on a rehearsal of the show by Meg Fozzard:

“The tech desk, where Rachel sits when she arrives, has been custom made for her. There’s almost 50 buttons with pictures on them. It links to a computer. “It’s all very Wizard of Oz” says Rachel Sampley, the Lead Technical Designer. Flo has discussed with me before the importance of this desk. They were going to have someone else controlling the tech desk under Rachel’s direction, but then that wouldn’t be Perfect Show for Rachel…

Then a piece is choreographed along to ‘Who’s Got the Bag (21st June)’ by The Streets. If you’re wondering how this fits in with the themes of Perfect Show for Rachel, apparently Rachel finds it really funny when things go missing. One of the performers, Folarin, is at the front of the stage and pretends to be a news broadcaster- “We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news…”. Bags are flying through the air as the garage track blares, then everyone moves in slow mo as the track slows down…

Here’s what I was able to jot down about the first 10 minutes before I gave up and just watched and enjoyed it: ‘The game’- only rachel knows the rules, Flo gets sent out/off stage, ‘Human bowling’- the cast are pins, Flo sings Soul Sister, one of their favourite songs to sing with Rachel, ‘Rachel goes on holiday’- on the screen and narrated by Flo we hear about how, during lockdown, the family weren’t able to see Rachel for a long time because of the restrictions and when they were lifted they went on their first family holiday together in Devon”

Read the full article here

Perfect Show for Rachel was developed with Rachel, to create a show on her own terms. It explores who defines artistic taste, and questions who that currently excludes. Created by Zoo Co Theatre, a multi award-winning company creating theatre that loudly champions access. Zoo Co won the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award in 2022. Created in collaboration with Improbable, a pioneering company of improvisers and theatre-makers who have been making ground-breaking work for the past 25 years. Proud winners of Producer of the Year at The Stage Awards 2023.

Book your place at the free post-show Q&A on Fri 6 Feb.

Want to know more about the show? See the Perfect Show for Rachel Introduction Notes