Rachel O’Mahony doesn’t give two hoots that her evolving stage production got five stars from the Guardian. The show may have won awards, had barnstorming reviews and made its audiences weep buckets, but Rachel’s own delight is what matters. As for anyone else who has the pleasure of watching? Rachel puts it perfectly. “Lucky you,” she says.
You see, this joyous, anarchic, different-every-time production has been tailored specifically, by Rachel’s younger sister Flo, to suit the tastes of 35-year-old Rachel, who has learning disabilities, loves Kylie and fart jokes, and is in total control of what happens on stage each night. It’s all in the show’s title: Perfect Show for Rachel.
The sisters sit on the sofa in the offices of Zoo Co, Flo’s theatre company. When Rachel laughs, she leans into Flo and Flo leans into Rachel. They put their foreheads together, squished close and smiling. I’m sat next to their mum, Wendy. During the shows, Wendy sits at the custom-built tech desk with Rachel, who simultaneously heckles the cast of 13 and directs the onstage action. Using 39 big buttons, she chooses which silly skit, game, song or dramatic lighting change is up next. Depending on what Rachel picks, Wendy is liable to be hurled into the air to do the Dirty Dancing lift, and Flo could be seconds away from becoming a human bowling pin.
“It was going to be a one-person show,” Flo admits. Now the production is “deliberately inconveniently large”. The ridiculous scale is part of its defiant joy. In each show, the cast might get fired, sent to bed, or tasked to perform a “snack cabaret”, where they dress up as Rachel’s favourite snacks. Rachel will often stop a scene halfway through or replay a song multiple times because she finds it funny. For the cast, performances can be delirious feats of endurance.
“When we first made the show, I was worried that it was too silly,” Flo says. “That people wouldn’t understand how furious I was with the government for how they handled policy for disabled people living in care homes throughout the pandemic.” Rachel lives in a care home, and during lockdown, the family was separated for months. “But all that sits underneath the show. You can’t come to see it and not think we’ve grappled with the political exclusion and ableism in our industry,” Flo says. “The truth is, it’s a poppy, playful, violent, slapstick, funny show that you could come and see on a hen night.”
Three years after first performing Perfect Show for Rachel, they’re now heading out on tour. I ask Rachel if she’s excited. She gives a double yes: in spoken English and with her hands, plus an emphatic nod and big grin for good measure.
Much of the creation process for this production has been about exploring different kinds of communication. This interview, for example, would not make it into the show. Flo is gentle and thoughtful at guiding her sister into our chat as much as possible, but this set-up is far from perfect for Rachel. “The language I’m using right now doesn’t have enough in-points for her to have a bearing on what’s happening in this conversation,” Flo explains. “I think that must be a lot of the experience of being Rachel.”
Through an extreme attentiveness to her words and body language, the team discovered ways to make Rachel feel understood and listened to, which enabled her to be in charge. The team’s practice has been developed with Lee Simpson, performer and co-artistic director of Improbable, who also co-created the stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro. “We say yes to what Rachel gives us,” Flo explains, “and assume it’s perfect or wise or clever. That we’re catching up with why it’s perfect.”
Wendy watches on, pride beaming out of her. “I could never have dreamed of this,” she says. When Flo first suggested making a show together, Wendy was unsure. “I was worried at first,” she says, “but it’s all what Rachel wants. She’s in charge. People like Rachel don’t often get this sort of agency. Even, you know, ‘What’s for dinner?’ But Rachel gets choices now. More than she used to, I think.”
Over the show’s lifetime, Rachel has got bolder, wanting to spend more time talking to the audience, watching for their reactions and sometimes pulling them up onstage. A recent addition is a window for waving to boys in the audience. “We wanted to keep it safe and still acknowledge that Rachel has a flirtatious bit of her personality,” says Flo. “We often think learning-disabled people don’t fancy people.” Rachel’s repeated attempts to hit on Flo’s boyfriend prove otherwise.
With a large cast, a decade-long development period and all the complex logistics you need to consider when you’re making a show with a disabled team member, Perfect Show for Rachel has not been easy or cheap to stage. “I don’t regret a single penny of it,” says Flo, “but it’s been very expensive.” As Arts Council funding and financial support for disabled people continue to be squeezed and cut, this kind of work – where artists are brave and imaginative about access – is increasingly challenging to make. “People would love us to be able to recreate the experience of making a show like this,” Flo says, then adds the catch: “For 20% of the price.” When we don’t invest in creative access, this is what we miss out on.
Measuring the success of the show has never been about changing Rachel. “Of course, though,” Flo says, “when you attend to someone and you listen, they do change.” She tells me about talking to Tina, who works in Rachel’s care home, and who said that Rachel’s language has expanded exponentially since doing the shows; she makes more decisions about her life, and starts conversations more often. When the team took the show to Brighton, all the staff and residents of Rachel’s care home came along, wearing T-shirts with her face on that said “Rachel’s fanclub”. The team has also led a project at the home working with different residents, letting each one have a go in Rachel’s role as director.
The biggest change has been in the makers and audiences. Aside from the rave reviews and awards this love-fuelled production has won, the biggest achievement can be found at the pub. Every Christmas, the O’Mahony family go to their village local for a pint. The event can be overwhelming, so sometimes Rachel doesn’t want to go. But in the year that most of the village saw her show, she agreed. “She networked her ass off,” laughs Flo, looking at her sister, “because the show is a lesson in 90 things you could talk to Rachel about. They just had so many ways in.”
Neighbours and new fans came up to her with a fart joke or asked about Kylie, no longer afraid of getting an encounter with Rachel wrong. Rooted in time and attention, this effort is central to what audiences come to understand through seeing the show. “You’ve spent time in Rachel’s world,” says Wendy, “without expecting Rachel to come and be in your world.”
Perfect Show for Rachel is at S!ck festival at Contact theatre, Manchester, 19 to 22 November; Queen’s theatre, Hornchurch, 5 to 7 February; Sheffield Theatres: Playhouse, 18 to 21 February; Birmingham Rep, 10 to 12 April; Oxford Playhouse, 13 to 16 May; and Leeds Playhouse, 27 May to 6 June.
