ROLE PLAY (OR THE HOTTEST DAY IN BELGIAN HISTORY)
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★★★
“unapologetic, bold, brave, and brilliantly acted”
A single actor sits facing upstage in a small Fringe theatre. One chair. A pillow. Two torches (flashlights). That’s all — and it’s all that’s needed. This is Fringe perfection.
I could say I’m old — or rather, well-seasoned. When I was young, we’d get drunk, have sex with one another, make mistakes, and pretend to forget what happened in the morning. Times have changed. For new generations, sex is more fluid, more available, more visible on the internet, roles more varied and accepted — and yet it also seems far more complicated, even impossible. Today it’s not just a physical act; it’s a mental one too — an intimate terrain of permission, perception, and potential misstep. When did sex quit being fun?
Cameron Murphy has crafted a show that is beautiful, complicated, and deeply human. We live in a time where so much feels like a minefield — where we censor what we do, say, and maybe even think. Murphy doesn’t tiptoe through those mines. In Role Play, he dances through them, unafraid — because what he’s expressing is truth. And truth might be the only thing that keeps us from harm.
The story is true. An aspiring actor falls for a girl in high school. He never connects with her — she becomes “the one who got away.” Years later, he finds her online. He sells a prized possession to buy a ticket to see her. What unfolds is an unflinching coming-of-age tale: tender, darkly honest, taboo-laced, and utterly human. It’s the hottest day in Belgian history, and the heat of long-lost teenage infatuation collides with the fire of twenty-something explorations of identity and sexual permissiveness.
Role Play lays bare the choreography we all perform in love — the parts we play, the masks we wear. This is not a fairy-tale romance. Murphy strips himself emotionally to the core, telling “the story [he] was most afraid to tell” — the one that proves all of us, in some way, are trying to be good actors, hoping our performance is enough. Hoping to connect.
Well directed by Paolo Laskero, the show clearly benefits from an outside eye. Role Play is the perfect Fringe piece: unapologetic, bold, brave, and brilliantly acted. Murphy’s delivery flows like a spontaneous tirade — yet beneath it is a deliberate structure and vocal rhythm. In music, a repeated phrase or pattern becomes an ostinato, creating unity and hypnotic tension; here, repetition becomes the heartbeat of the piece — or perhaps the mended heart that serves as its central metaphor.
It’s architectural. Patterns return. Emotional arcs loop and resolve. The two torches become instruments of self-lighting, sculpting the space and punctuating scenes with precision.
The result: fifty vulnerable minutes, choreographed and sculpted with skill. Great art requires permission, surrender, and acceptance. This work demands all three — and somehow gives back more. It’s also quite funny, and Murphy’s wit and charm light the room even when the torches are off.
ROLE PLAY (OR THE HOTTEST DAY IN BELGIAN HISTORY)
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Reviewed on 11th August 2025 at Ivy Studio at Greenside @ George Street
by Louis Kavouras
Photography by Jill Petracek
