Perfect Show for Rachel – and for you – comes to Leeds Playhouse

Fast-paced, joyous show comes to the Courtyard Theatre at Leeds Playhouse from 28 May – 6 June.

Funny, heart-warming and triumphant – Perfect Show for Rachel is set to give Leeds audiences the perfect night out.

Meet the O’Mahony sisters. Flo is an award-winning theatre director. Rachel is an enigmatic, learning-disabled 35-year-old who loves Kylie and seeing people fall over. So, they decided to create Rachel’s perfect show: fast paced, funny, and different every night.

Expect physical comedy, live music, home movies, dancing and a lot of Rachel soaking her sister with a water gun in this critically acclaimed, award-winning show. As Rachel creates the show on her own terms every night, the cast have to be ready for anything – including fart jokes, becoming singing biscuits, bar room brawls and being fired on the spot.

Artistic Director and performer Flo O’Mahony explains the creative process that puts Director Rachel O’Mahony in the driving seat at every performance: “It didn’t take long for Rachel’s directorial persona to become apparent. Rachel doesn’t want to be in the show, she wants the show to happen for her. And she doesn’t have time to massage any performer’s ego. If you’re not showing up in the way Rachel wants, and sometimes even if you are, you’re sent out. One week in our second R&D, Tim, a creative technician who was tasked with inventing iPad apps as a prototype system for Rachel’s tech desk, spent about 50% of his time standing outside in the rain.

“Everything we’ve done since then, has been about us trying to capture Rachel’s story, and creativity, in a way that we can share. Process and production both have to be ‘perfect’ for Rachel, which means ripping up almost every rule book about how to make theatre, and starting from scratch.”

Perfect Show for Rachel was created by Zoo Co Theatre, a multi award-winning company creating theatre that loudly champions access. It was co-produced with Improbable, a pioneering company of improvisers and theatre-makers who have been making ground-breaking work for the past 25 years. This thrilling production, which explores who defines artistic taste, and questions who that currently excludes, resulted in Zoo Co winning the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award in 2022.

The original creative team includes Rachel O’Mahony, Director; Flo O’Mahony, Artistic Director of Zoo Co and performer; Fleur Rooth, Performer and Creative Access Director for Zoo Co; Lee Simpson, Co-Artistic Director of Improbable and Performer; Stella Backman, Set and Costume Designer; Rachel Sampley, Lighting and Video Designer; and Simeon Campbell, Choreographer.

Perfect Show for Rachel plays at Leeds Playhouse 28 May – 6 June. Tickets are available here.