Goodbye Dandelion review – ode to a fabulous friendship with a 50-year age gap

Underbelly, Edinburgh
Maddie and Marcus Rice relate with words and songs the lessons passed on from one woman to a younger one

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.