An unexpected theme on this year’s Edinburgh fringe is assisted dying. It is central to Morna Young’s After Party, about a matriarch who chooses to die after her 80th birthday, and Ben Harrison’s adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies, in which a terminally ill man travels to Dignitas. It is hinted at in Eilidh Loan’s Cathy, about a woman adjusting to bereavement. And it is here again in this breezy storytelling show by sibling duo Maddie and Marcus Rice.
The semi-fictional tale is about Maddie’s befriending of the 87-year-old Darcy O’Shea, an artist and piano teacher 50 years her senior, who is full of zest and vigour. As Maddie puts it, she is “unapologetically herself”, a woman living a life of happy self-reliance with limited tolerance for anyone else. A long-gone partner nicknamed her Dandelion because of her sticky-up hair, and it suits her personality.
Darcy tells it as she sees it and does not mind shaming the younger woman for failing to change the things that weigh her down: life is too short not to plunge in headfirst.
As a narrator, Maddie has a sunny disposition and relates the story with some wit. Lest she get maudlin, she has Marcus on hand as a counterbalance. Playing pretty waltzes on the piano throughout, he launches into songs that draw on the language of officialdom to comic effect. There is even some heartening audience participation.
Knowing that death is coming can make plays on this theme feel like one long delaying tactic, especially here where the story has so little friction. Directed by Katie Pesskin, it is best – if briefest – on the impact the encounter has on Maddie and the way it propels her to make changes in her own life.
