“FUCK PEOPLE WHO GET TO BE OLD.”

By Charlotte Mason-Mottram | Mason-Mottram ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

Outpatient, written by Harriet Madeley and directed by Madelaine Moore, takes mortality – our most hushed and universal fear – and dares to drag it into the light. Performed at Park Theatre, it is laugh-out-loud funny, razor-sharp, and unflinchingly honest. In just over an hour, Madeley manages to reframe death as a punchline, a provocation, and ultimately, a liberation.

The play follows Olive, a journalist mining the subject of death for a feature, hoping to speak to people with “lived experience” of dying (the irony!). Olive, like so many of us, intellectualises death to avoid facing it. Her own diagnosis is the silent pulse beneath the surface of the play, giving weight to every joke.

Using minimal props – an exercise ball, a walking pad, and a microphone – Madeley transforms the stage with inventive ease. A doctor’s office, a bar, the London Marathon; each setting unfolds with physical wit and emotional clarity. At one moment, she flops onto the exercise ball as she’s being examined in a hospital setting. Then, it’s a seat in a loud gay bar. The transitions are seamless and impressively choreographed.

Outpatient doesn’t just flirt with dark humour; it commits. There are moments of breath-snatching hilarity: Madeley delivers the line, “Fuck people who get to be old!” with such audacity that the room erupts. Yet, the script never loses sight of the tender reality at its heart (“love is all you need”).

The play also touches on ego death, the mythologies we create around mortality, and how society has reversed its taboos; in the Victorian era, sex was once whispered about while death was openly discussed. Now, sex sells, and death is locked behind hospital curtains. We’re obsessed with the undead (vampires, zombies, ghosts), but terrified of the actual dying.

Outpatient is a breath of fresh air. A reminder that talking about death doesn’t have to kill the mood. Sometimes, it might even save it.

Outpatient is running at Park Theatre until Saturday 7 June.

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Photo Credit: Abi Mowbray