To book: kingsheadtheatre.com Cast as JK Rowling in a Fringe show which “had Edinburgh running scared' (The Telegraph) one actress is thrust into global controversy. What should have been her big break becomes an implosion, as international press and backstage chaos collide.
In 2024, actress Laura Kay Bailey was cast in the role of J.K. Rowling in a play at the Edinburgh Fringe called Terf, written and directed by Joshua Kaplan, that 'imagined Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint meeting with Rowling over a posh dinner in a super-modern, edgy restaurant, to stage an intervention over her anti-trans behaviour.
' At the time, Kaplan said, 'This play will hurt people. No matter how hard it tries not to hurt people, it will hurt people.' And yup, it did, but mostly the actors in the play, it seems. The very existence of the play got a lot of coverage, The play also had an unnamed masked character, 'dressed like a one-winged angel, and is noticed only by Rowling during the play, who repeatedly asks them if she knows them.' One review said, 'The character is the one weak link in the show, only because their role is not large or clear enough.' Other reviews were not so kind. The Scotsman said, 'it struggles to expand a Shoreditch House chat into a one-hour, twenty-minute play. As they're served food by an anonymous figure with their mouth taped shut, it's not a subtle set-up – less interested in exploring the real-life experiences of those involved than creating its own 'intervention'.' The Guardian said, 'we see nothing to connect this generous liberal-minded novelist with her divisive social-media output.' The Times noted, ' The only trans character in the show remains largely mute, with tape across her mouth, suggesting the lack of trans voices in the debate about their rights and women's rights.' But generally, after the hullabaloo, the reaction to the play itself was muted. And it disappeared, to be forgotten. But not by the guy I was sitting next to at the King's Theatre in Islington last night, who was in Edinburgh in 2024, went to see the play, only for it to be cancelled that night. He never got his refund. Rowling In It poster Because there, Laura Kay Bailey is putting on an entirely new production, Rowling In It, which she has written for herself, playing a version of herself as an actress cast in a play about J.K. Rowling. Oh, and she also plays all the other roles, in a hardy-disguised version of reality, though she gives it a go with a disclaimer at the beginning. None of us believes it. Here, the writer/director is called Snape, the producer is called Hagrid, and the three young actors are Harry, Hermione, and Ron, played by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint in the play. Oh, and yes, there is McGonagall, a trans actress who is playing X. It's a very neat trick; we know the names, we don't have to remember the names of a bunch of other actors playing these characters on stage. Especially as Laura Kay Bailey is playing them all. The Telegraph said that the original play, Terf, had a difficult job even finding an actress to take the role. Laura Kay Bailey, a struggling actress who finds herself up for that rarest of things, a satirical play with a forty-plus woman in the lead, seized it. And it's in that very spirit, two years later, she is playing everyone! And it works; she is very capable at separating them all for the audience; we are never in doubt over who is talking to whom. And putting some of the more complex multi-character arguments into a projected WhatsApp group both helps that clarity and provides many of the jokes. This is not a play about the issues raised by J.K. Rowling, or about the person per se, although they do come up a lot. Instead, it is a play about a play heading for disaster. One that is constantly being rewritten by an out-of-town auteur, the only one who believes in his own genius, with a cast in argument with him and each other, unable to settle on a script that they can agree on with days to go till it opens and suddenly facing the eye of an international media, when they were only ever supposed to be this small fringe play. And, depending upon how veritas you want to take this depiction, and I see no reason not to, the character of X, as seen in the original play, was played by an unnamed, uncredited trans actress, and was meant to have a much larger role as a foil to JK. She was hired as a writer to develop her role further as a foil to JK Rowling, making the trans case, or at least challenging JK, from a position of knowledge. Although what status her reality was meant to take was never tied down either. In an attempt to cut the play down and make it to performance, the director Snape cuts all her lines, entirely. So she decides to perform with a piece of tape across her mouth, without credit, to show that she was being silenced. But as the reviews showed, the interpretation of this ended up very differently. That becomes a strong theme of this show: no matter the authorial intent, you have no way to control how people react to what you do. Rowling In It is a very entertaining and amusing play about a play, given even more oomph by being written by and starring the lead of the play that it is actually about. The temptation is that she might have painted herself as the hero, but she really does not. Not a villain either, but repeatedly weak, out of her depth, and unable to stop herself from crashing and falling. Instead she is just one of many reasons why the play wasn't what it was originally meant to be, how egos clash, with good intentions becoming monstrous actions, including one speech from herself, playing herself, as the characters descend into People's Front Of Judea-arguments, that it's all well and good arguing about the intersectionality of race when decided the role, action and aspiration of each character in the play, but… they are all white. There are no conclusions to this play; it doesn't seem to want to reach any. If you are looking for a particular point of view, and there were some in last night's audience who definitely were, you won't get that. Instead, it is a window onto a story that some vaguely remember, showing that it was far weirder, less coherent and much more of a mess than anyone might have presumed. Whatever damage the world's attention did to the original play, they were far more capable of doing that to themselves. Thankfully, Rowling Off, by having just one actress, and the one who wrote the thing, makes this a tight, funny, and pointed play. And with just one cartwheel. And my seating partner didn't even ask for his two year old refund. Rowling In It runs at the King's Head Theatre, in Islington, London, Mondays to Saturdays, until the 18th of April. I do hope it makes it back up to Edinburgh to complete the circle… or will we get another play about how Rowling In It was actually also an incredible mess from start to finish instead? Call it Rowling It Back? Rowling In It
Islington J K Rowling King's Head Theatre Laura Kay Bailey London Theatre
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Best things to do this week in Los Angeles and Southern California: April 13-16Laura Hertzfeld's bio on LAist.com.
Read more »
Todd Blanche says he's 'horrified' Epstein victims' details were made publicLaura Jarrett is a senior legal correspondent for NBC News.
Read more »
Todd Blanche says it was 'horrible' Epstein victims' details were made publicLaura Jarrett is a senior legal correspondent for NBC News.
Read more »
Parents share their fears as local service members continue deployment to the Middle EastLaura Acevedo joined the ABC 10News team in April 2017 as a reporter and multimedia journalist.
Read more »
Pentagon Pete’s Bid to Purge Women From Military Suffers SetbackThe deadline for the review has been extended well into next year.
Read more »
Bella Kay Joins Billboard U.K. Live at The Great Escape Festival 2026: See Full LineupThe full lineup for the Billboard U.K. Live takeover at The Great Escape 2026 in Brighton has been unveiled, led by rising rockers Keo.
Read more »