EdFringe Review: Goodbye Dandelion

Assisted dying has emerged as one of the recurring motifs of this year’s Fringe programme, giving rise to a wave of creative responses to mortality. Into this space steps Goodbye Dandelion, staged beneath the stone arches of Underbelly Cowgate’s Belly Dancer venue and the latest in artistic, atheistic wrangling with the big full stop.

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Written by Maddie Rice—best known for taking over the stage mantle of Fleabag—alongside her pianist brother Marcus Rice, this very well-written storytelling show with songs tackles ageing, companionship, and voluntary death without the comfort of cosmic purpose. What it delivers is a charming, secular attempt to construct meaning out of chaos.

The story follows a semi-fictionalised version of 37-year-old Maddie, adrift in a low-paying arts job and a stagnant relationship. Seeking an antidote to her existential anxiety, she signs up for an elderly companionship scheme and meets Darcy O’Shea: an unapologetic, 87-year-old artist and former piano teacher 50 years her senior. Nicknamed ‘Dandelion’ by a long-gone partner due to her unruly white hair, Darcy lives in fierce, spiky self-reliance. Under Katie Pesskin’s direction, the performance unfolds around a set dominated by a giant, twinkling dandelion clock, two chairs, and two microphones.

The chemistry between the real-life siblings helps to give the piece momentum. Maddie brings a sunny, slightly lost charm to her superbly performed monologue, detailing Wednesdays spent sipping wine and absorbing Darcy’s blunt home truths. At the electric keyboard, Marcus provides a dry, deadpan counterweight. Responding to the narrative flow, he breaks into lightly jazzy, plaintive songs that translate the cold officialdom of medical statistics and bureaucracy into dark-humoured comedy. It falls to him to voice Darcy, and to hold Maddie to account when telling her story.

The Comfort of Collective Mortality

Yet for all its unpretentious charm, the show fits squarely into a familiar secular pattern. When confronted with Darcy’s choice to plan her own end, the script reaches for philosophical depth but finds an empty room. Rather than staring into that existential void, the piece retreats behind a slightly jolly, comforting refrain that ‘people die all the time’ whilst emphasising a ‘carpe diem’ mindset.

Directorially, Pesskin keeps the staging light and conversational. The close quarters of the Belly Dancer space lend themselves to intimacy, helping observations about bodily decline, loneliness, and memory loss to carry personal meaning and weight. Marcus’s musical underscoring functions as exposure therapy for the audience, cushioning the harsh reality of Darcy’s narrowing choices without letting the tone collapse into despair.

The production is not without its flaws. A few of the narrative transitions feel slightly over-engineered and narratively convenient; calculated to tug at the heartstrings rather than letting life’s typically unpredictable beats land naturally. Additionally, the meta-framing device occasionally stalls the central relationship just as it gathers dramatic friction. Marcus’s occasional jaunts to the microphone to deliver a pithy, mostly factually accurate sermon are well written, but can feel forced.

Yet these structural stumbles take little away from the show’s overall warmth and technical craft. It’s not every play about death that could muster a gently bittersweet, wordless group singalong with such natural charm. What’s that I said? Group singing? That’s right, dear reader, this show about death comes with an order of service (Marcus lets us know the show’s parameters before Maddie takes over), the occasional sermon, and group singing. One imagines this is not remotely accidental. Well, why not use tradition to ‘grease the wheels’ for an audience, whilst you induct them into your philosophy of life and death?

Goodbye Dandelion succeeds because Maddie and Marcus Rice are deeply engaging performers who handle heavy themes with an admirable lightness of touch. It offers a sweet, melodic cushion against the dark, and a reminder to make the most of your life; if that’s what you’d like to do with it.

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