Isobel Jacob
“They won’t kiss me under lights but they they’ll assault me in the dark.”
18-year-old Amna is well-behaved at school, well-behaved at home, she works hard at her studies, doesn’t go to parties… she is everything a good Muslim girl is ‘meant’ to be. Until she isn’t.
Feeling completely invisible to her crush, she posts a flirtatious photo on Instagram and receives an unexpected number of DMs from psuedo-named men online. One offers her £50 for a call. Amna can’t believe it can be this easy to make money. Armed with a bright pink dildo, she is quickly sucked into a wildly successful and lucrative OnlyFans career as PersianBaby, a desirable, dominant and sexy persona that takes her deep into an intoxicating world of attention, sexuality and power. Pink Rabbit is a dynamic and hard-hitting exploration of the sex industry, fetishisation and intergenerational and cultural conflict.
This is a coming-of-age solo show, one of many at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026, but this one packs a real punch. Writer and performer Farah Ashraf is a tour-de-force as she tackles her script’s non-linear structure, multiple characters and confessional style with electrifying gusto – making this anything but just another solo show.
Ashraf is powerful and bold, yet always believable, as Amna. She uses almost constant eye contact with the audience to truly immerse us in her storytelling. Alessandro Babalola‘s direction is equally impressive, where inventive transitions and creative use of movement allow Ashraf to shine brightly. Yet it is the writing itself that is most thrilling and affecting in Pink Rabbit: covering so much fertile ground, from the way South Asian women like Amna – brown women, in general, too – are stereotyped and exoticised, to Amna’s battle for autonomy and independence while living with her Muslim mother, to the shame and stigma surrounding sex for teenage girls and how it intersects with Amna’s identity as a British-Pakistani woman.
Using beautifully poetic language, Ashraf is able to tease out layers upon layers of emotionally charged and multi-faceted discussion which ultimately becomes a portrait of a young woman trying to be herself when the world tells her she has to choose one box or another to fit in to. Never accusatory, Pink Rabbit also exposes an ultimately heart-wrenching look at a generational and cultural divide between a mother, who has sacrificed so much to start a new life, and a daughter who is carving out an identity as a woman in the UK.
With an immersive use of music mixing the traditional with the modern, furthered with highly effective lighting design, thumping bass and red pulsating LEDs transition Pink Rabbit between each quickly moving scene. Sometimes I wondered whether these transitions were too quick, building to big moments without enough time for anticipation or foreshadowing. I would have loved to see more time taken over the uncomfortable, messy parts, possibly more so than the profound and neat conclusions Ashraf draws.
Regardless, Farah Ashraf is clearly one to watch: Pink Rabbit is a stunning debut play which has so much to say, and makes for a truly eye-opening and moving addition to your Fringe programme.
Recommended Drink: A Smirnoff Ice or WKD to get you in the reckless teenage spirit.
Pink Rabbit is on at Underbelly Bristo Square until 30 August at 16:15 & on selected dates at 19:15 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay Mace
Romeo Lau
