Shay Mace
Catherine Taafe is making her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut next month in her self-penned play The Only Man Who Won’t F*ck Me, exploring sex work, desire, and spiralling out of control through the lens of Kat, proprietor of a business built on knowing what men want – what happens when she suddenly is no longer wanted? We caught up with Catherine to find out.
You can catch The Only Man Who Won’t F*ck Me at Playground 2 at ZOO Playground on August 7th – 30th (not the 17th) from 21:50 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay: Hi Catherine! Your upcoming EdFringe follows a character called Kat who finds herself caught up in a strange situation with a man called Logan. Tell us about both characters and what the audience can expect.
Catherine: Kat is a sex worker who has built her entire identity around being wanted, like needed, like if someone doesn’t want her she might actually dissolve into nothing. She knows how to manufacture desire, how to be the fantasy, how to survive off attention like it’s oxygen. Logan is a trans boxer who just… doesn’t play that game. He likes her, but not in the way she’s scripted in her head, and that absolutely breaks her brain.
What starts as this kind of delusional rom-com spiral, like “if I just say the right thing, wear the right thing, be the right thing, he’ll love me,” slowly turns into something way darker and messier and honestly kind of unhinged. It’s funny, but in that way where you’re laughing and then suddenly you’re like, oh god, is this me? Expect chaos, confession, stalking, bad decisions, and a girl insisting she’s totally fine while very clearly not being fine at all.
Shay: How has the creative process been of putting the show together? Give us an idea of the journey you’ve been on with it so far.
Catherine: It started because I got rejected and absolutely could not let it go, like fully spiralling, texting my friends at 4am, crying in bathrooms, the whole thing. At first I thought I was writing something light and funny about unrequited love, like “haha isn’t this relatable,” and then it got uncomfortable. It became about entitlement, about fantasy, about the stories we tell ourselves so we don’t have to sit with the reality that someone just doesn’t want us. Which is devastating.
The script has gone through so many drafts because every time I thought I understood it, it would just open up another emotional trapdoor. Working with Poppy Burton-Morgan has been incredible because she refuses to let me hide behind jokes or charm. She keeps pushing me to go deeper, which is terrifying but also exactly what the piece needs. It’s ended up feeling way more honest and way more exposing than I ever intended.
Shay: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
Catherine: The first thing you hear is Kat asking her therapist, “why won’t he fuck me?” which is already like… okay, we’re here now. And then she turns to the audience because actually, you’re the therapist. There’s no distance. You’re implicated immediately. It feels intimate, a little invasive, like you’ve walked into a conversation you weren’t supposed to overhear but now you can’t leave. It’s playful at first, conspiratorial, like she’s letting you in on something juicy. And then slowly you realise you’re kind of trapped in her perspective. You’re laughing with her, maybe even rooting for her, and then suddenly you’re like… oh no. Oh no, where is this going. And ideally by the end, it’s just silence. Like that moment when everything lands and no one quite knows what to do with it.
Shay: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Catherine: Honestly I hope they have a great night and then immediately need to debrief with someone in a bathroom or outside smoking or whatever. The show lives in that uncomfortable space between how we see ourselves and how other people actually experience us. I think most people have had that moment of being obsessed with someone who wasn’t good for them, or who didn’t want them back, and telling themselves a story to make it feel okay. Kat just takes it way too far. If people leave laughing but also slightly unsettled, arguing about who’s right, recognising parts of themselves they’d rather not admit to, then that’s kind of perfect.
Shay: What journey has the show been on to find itself at EdFringe 2026?
Catherine: This is my first solo show at Edinburgh and it’s been a lot. Like thrilling and terrifying and occasionally deeply unhinged. It started as something very personal and kind of messy and has grown into a full production with an amazing team. There’s been workshops, rewrites, fundraising, all the admin chaos, all the “what am I doing” moments.
Especially coming off years of trying to get film and TV projects made that just stalled out, it feels really important to just make something and put it in front of people without waiting for permission. Edinburgh feels like the right place for something that’s a bit strange and a bit risky and doesn’t fit neatly into a box.
Shay: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Catherine: The audience, fully. Like the whole reason I’m doing this is to actually have people see the work, to not have it sitting on a hard drive somewhere waiting for approval. There’s something really freeing about just going, okay, I’m going to do this myself. But also, doing a solo show can feel weirdly lonely, because it’s just you carrying the whole thing. So in a way, I need the audience as much as Kat does. It’s that same energy of wanting to be seen, wanting connection, wanting someone to be there with you in it.
Shay: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Catherine: It’s like an Espresso Martini that someone keeps topping up without telling you. At first it’s fun and glamorous and you feel hot and in control, and then suddenly it’s 4am, you’re in a club bathroom with a stranger who is now your bestie, doing a bump off her acrylic, telling her about yout tinder match who won’t love you back, then suddenly sobbing about how you wish your father loved you back… how did we get here? And what was in that drink??? But also you’re weirdly having the best time. That’s the show.
A reminder, you can catch The Only Man Who Won’t F*ck Me at Playground 2 at ZOO Playground on August 7th – 30th (not the 17th) from 21:50 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
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