FLICK

Grief and humour may seem unlikely companions, but Madelaine Nunn’s one-woman show FLICK combines these with marvellous charm and heart-breaking empathy to tell a story that looks at loss through the eyes of a struggling palliative care nurse.

We’re quickly drawn a picture of the ward: the new-age boss, the frowning HR person, and the details of each patient in her care. Nunn describes Flick’s day caring for them, talking with them, playing games with them (and not intentionally losing). But when she’s not working, she’s home in what’s becoming a squalid flat – not eating properly, not brushing her teeth, and falling asleep on the couch rather than making it to bed. It’s a desperate imbalance of work-no life, and the doomed cycle seems unbreakable.

Until new patient Mark arrives. He’s young and hot. And Flick can’t help but be drawn to him. When he asks her to do him a favour, the crossed boundary is the beginning of something new – and even more dangerous than his looks.

Nunn is outstanding. She embodies the mania of someone who is so busy it takes her three hours to get through a cup of coffee, whilst projecting the casual confidence of a nurse who has done and seen it all a thousand times before. She brings the audience close, and we’re hanging off her every word.

Nunn’s physicality is extraordinary: there’s just her and a stool on stage, yet the way she moves her hands you know she’s opening a door, how she walks and runs around the stage defines the  flat – you know exactly where the kitchen bench is, how to enter the ensuite, and in which corner of the nurse’s station you can find the chocolate. Emily O’Brien-Brown’s direction and Christian Biko’s precise sound design fit perfectly with Nunn’s disarming eye contact and gestures to the audience: we’re not just witnessing an intimate conversation, we’re thoroughly involved in it.

Nunn is an award-winning writer and performer (FLICK was shortlisted for the 2022 Rodney Seaborn Playwright’s Award) and both aspects shine brilliantly: the words are relatable, well-paced, and affords the audience an appreciation of the emotions such a profession must endure daily. Nunn doesn’t stutter in word or movement – until the heartbreak fills her eyes with tears – which fills ours too.

It's a superb examination of grief, beautifully unravelled with heart and humour by a brilliant performer.

Review by Mark Wickett

Photographer: Darren Gill

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