Writer: Madelaine Nunn
Director: Emily O’Brien-Brown
Solo shows are an increasingly dominant genre in the Theatre section of the Fringe, and Flick is another show falling into that category. Written and performed by Madelaine Nunn, it looks at death, grieving and unhealthy infatuation through the eyes of Flick, a nurse on a cancer ward in an Australian hospital.
The necessary distance members of the medical profession have to take from the patients they take care of, as well as the way that routine and repetition provides a natural immunity from the trauma of death is brought out in the early parts of the show, where the dark gallows humour also reminds us that it’s not just good people that die of cancer, as Mary, a cantankerous patient finally breathes her last.
A reminder that it’s also not just old people whose lives are cut short by it is made clear when Mary’s place in room 13 on the ward is taken by Mark, who is not only young, but also very attractive and not yet showing signs of the extent to which the disease may ravage his body. Flick’s initial infatuation with Mark takes a darker turn after she is asked to pick up a book from his house and enters into the world he inhabited before he was hospitalized.
The story of obsession and immersing yourself into someone else’s life is well-performed but somewhat ghoulish and it becomes hard to really sympathise with Flick as her behaviour becomes more disturbed, while she seems to be largely oblivious to the almost stalker-ish nature of her interest in the minutiae of Mark’s life.
A twist at the end of the play provides a context that places the character and her actions in a different light, but it feels like this could have been introduced earlier to add much needed depth both to the script and the character and to make this a far more compelling piece than it currently is.
Runs until 25 August 2025
