one4review | On 13, Aug 2025

Flick packs Summerhall’s Red Lecture Theatre for an hour of sharply observed, darkly funny and quietly unsettling solo theatre. Dressed in hospital scrubs, palliative care nurse Madelaine Nunn commands the stage, revealing that she works in an end-of-life cancer hospice, used to dealing with patients who don’t have a very long time to live.

From the outset, she tells us, half-apologetically, that jokes are “currency” in this world; a coping mechanism in a place where loss is constant. Beneath the humour, however, the cracks in her own life start to show: stress, loneliness, and a home as disordered as her thoughts.

When young and attractive new patient Mark arrives, her professionalism begins to falter. She agrees to collect a book for him from his apartment, but her visit turns into something far more personal – lingering and exploring, leading to her spending whole nights there. Before returning the keys, she secretly gets her own set cut. The question hangs in the air: can she keep living in his space, in this fantasy, without the truth unravelling?

Nunn’s performance is superb, holding the audience’s attention without a single supporting actor or elaborate set. She shifts from gallows humour to moments of aching vulnerability with ease, allowing the audience to feel complicit in her choices. The writing cleverly balances moral tension with empathy, leaving us to question where the line should be drawn.

This is a tightly performed and emotionally layered piece – funny, unsettling and quietly heartbreaking. Nunn’s presence is magnetic, but as her storytelling headed towards the final conclusion, the fire alarm went off at the venue and we all had to vacate the premises. Given the tight scheduling, there was no chance of returning for the last couple of minutes. I will try to catch the show again before the end of the run, and would recommend that you do too, hopefully without a fire alarm!

****1/2

Reviewed by Howard

Summerhall – Red Lecture Theatre

16.45 (1hr)

Until 25 Aug (not 18)