A show directed on her own terms

Rachel, my big sister, is the director of Perfect Show for Rachel. She is learning disabled and lives in a care home.

Rachel directs the show live from her on-stage, custom-built tech desk. A touch of a button triggers music, lighting, scenes or choreography, brought to life by performers.

The award-winning show is produced by theatre companies Zoo Co and Improbable. The world premiere was staged in The Pit at London’s Barbican in 2022 and a new version returned earlier this year.

We developed a show with Rachel on her terms to explore who defines artistic taste and question who that excludes.

Developing it alongside Rachel has been moving, hilarious and challenging. I am usually a director rather than a performer, and handing over the reins to anyone would have been a challenge, never mind to my big sister.

Perfect Show For Rachel has made me a better artist, better director and – I hope – better person.

Rachel is a Kylie Minogue fan, a fart joke enthusiast and the driest comedian. She’s playful, inquisitive and brutally honest. She frequently checks if people are OK in both the company and the audience.

As director, she is sharp, witty, decisive and possesses wisdom about emotional beats, pauses, repetition and endings. Working with Rachel has challenged the cast to drop egos and grow as artistes.

Rachel loves talking about her show, tending to say “I like Rachel’s show”, “It’s funny” and “It’s clever”. She makes the audience say, “Well done, Rachel!” at the end.

Being Rachel’s younger sister was and still is a big part of my identity. I have never known a sense of family without her. Things could be challenging – Rachel really enjoyed pulling my hair and I found that hard to deal with as a kid. But she had a particular brand of hugging bordering on strangling that could melt away sibling resentment in moments.

There was a lot of car singing, outdoor adventures and giggling. My parents allowed me to just be a kid, not a carer, if I wanted to. I naturally wanted to be involved in Rachel’s care and decisions about her life.

Working on this show has shown me how much Rachel has to give and teach. I feel profound respect and adoration for her as an artist and as my sister.

I try to listen out for Rachel’s inherent wisdom, I assume more often that she can do things and make decisions, and have found it easier to share her brand of comedy and communication with people, so I no longer feel like her gatekeeper in social situations.

Shows relaxed as standard

Rachel is the reason Zoo Co makes all shows relaxed as standard. Whenever she came to our shows, she would heckle whether or not they were relaxed. We started to always make the shows Rachel came to relaxed.

Relaxed performance is about allowing theatre and the people experiencing it to behave in ways that are natural for them. We’ve accidentally built a colonialist, classist, racist, ableist expectation around audience behaviour that is not only exclusive but also asks audiences not to be human in response to the art they are experiencing. Theatre is better when we allow audiences to have live responses to our work.

The world is not built with people like Rachel in mind. I’ve always been ready to kick off at the first person who had a bad word to say about my sister. Now, I guess I can channel that into my work at Zoo Co. Rachel instigated that.

Being Rachel’s sister is one of the most profound, informative things about me. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Flo O’Mahoney is artistic director of Zoo Co, which is booking dates for touring Perfect Show for Rachel in summer and autumn 2025