Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Role Play (or The Hottest day in Belgian History)
Cameron Murphy, Drama 3/4 Productions
Genre: Drama, One Person Show, Solo Play
Venue: Greenside at George Street, Ivy Studio
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
This performance goes way beyond the average fringe navel gazing of solo shows where an actor tells us what happened to them. With fantastic intensity, Jekyll and Hyde Cameron bares all – “well, almost”.
Review
A young man sits with his back to us at the top of the stage as we file in, he is not moving, the music from MASH plays. For those of us who know it, the lines ‘suicide is painless’ spring to mind, is this going to be another one of those shows?
But then he shouts ‘Lights!’ and springs into action. And from that moment on we are on a rollercoaster that hardly lets up. Courageous Cameron goes for it full tilt with secure tech support in lights and sound effects and a big space to play in. And play he does.
A skinny boy in loose clothing, not much to look at, intense and relaxed, sure of his material, a fast paced and intelligent teller of his story, he clutches a grey pillow at times, a little Linus with his security blanket, but there’s no Charlie Brown in sight. He’s just a teenager who wants to be an actor, he’s in a play where he has to kiss a girl at the end of the final scene – Hot Lips from MASH who he fancies, and he is terrified. So far so good. But then.
Lights out! And now Cameron lights himself with high intensity laser pointers, one in each hand, a red and a blue. His face suddenly leers at us, shining in the newly created shadows with a jawline like a young Willem Dafoe in Platoon. This Cameron is a different man and he will be HIM again and again. The red and blue Cameron is frightened and then strong and then mean, this is the role play of the title. He can be anyone, he is an ACTOR.
As the show progresses, his journey towards, as the subtitle promises, the ‘hottest day in Belgian history’ becomes a journey into his manhood: the porn addicted virgin learns a few lessons about himself. Director Paolo Laskero seems to have unleashed all of Cameron’s acting abilities as he barrels his way through this adventure with nothing but the grey pillow, a chair, and those red and blue lights, running around the stage as if it were an airport, or Antwerp, choking Ruby, being embarrassed, meeting her parents, apologising, admiring strange artworks, being a porn daddy, being a good man… it’s all there in his twists and beautiful sudden turns, completely relaxed and then terribly intense.
In the background is Cameron’s desire to be a better actor, to be more in his head, or less, to be the best actor he could be. This show is among many things an acting lesson for all wannabe actors: Go see ‘role play’ and learn to act like him, if you dare! And as an afterthought, if any casting agent is looking for someone to play a scruffy young offshoot of Robert Downey Jr., check out this guy.
