Interview: Issy Knowles Wants More Men to See BODY COUNT at SoHo Playhouse

In the last year, we’ve witnessed a cultural shift: sex work has become a competitive sport. As OnlyFans creators vie for attention in an oversaturated market, extreme stunts have dominated our headlines. Women claiming to have slept with 100 to 1,000 men in under 12 hours have divided liberal feminists all over the world. The internet hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

Following in the footsteps of the content creators before her, Pollie is an OnlyFans star determined to catapult herself to stratospheric fame with her most extreme stunt yet: sleeping with 1,000 of her subscribers on her trip to New York City.

Body Count tracks Pollie’s journey into OnlyFans stunts, from her confusing Catholic upbringing to her failed consulting career to her first taste of quick, ‘easy’ cash. Through an empathetic and inquisitive lens, we are drawn into Pollie’s complicated relationship with sex and begin to examine whether it’s ever truly possible to sever your body from your heart.

We spoke with creator and performer Issy Knowles about the show.

Can you tell us a little about the inspiration for your show Body Count?

Around the start of 2025 these extreme competitive sex acts started making headlines, and my friendship group and I could not stop talking about them. I became obsessed with them the way people are obsessed with true crime. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I sort of wanted to be in the queue myself, just to be around those men and see how it all played out. I wanted to be inside the heads of the women hosting them. I think I was just desperate to understand the experiences of everyone involved.

The conversations around these events have become a lot more nuanced since, but when they first really boomed I felt the conversation had been totally hijacked by right wing media. The question kept circling: what kind of society could create women like these? And I wanted to scream: our society. A society where so many sexual experiences for women feel one-sided and transactional. A society where the org*sm gap still very much exists.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that these events required a single woman, but hundreds, if not a thousand men, yet all the media did was critique the women. CLASSIC!
But the most frightening thing these events highlighted for me was the huge appetite some men seem to have for extreme, dehumanising pornography.

Who did you base the character of Pollie off of?

There’s a lot of me in Pollie, truthfully. Like all of us, I was raised in a patriarchal society where the desire to please men has been hardwired into my DNA. I was raised Catholic, so from a very young age I was told that women were created from the rib of a man, to be a companion to him. In so many of my early experiences with men I was made to feel like a notch on a bedpost. I related to these women hosting the events; I understand humanely how enough of those experiences can lead to a severance between your body and your heart.

Have you made any tweaks or edits to the show since your Fringe run?

Yes, much more than tweaks; it feels like a new show. I’ve had an incredible time rebuilding it with my director and producer, Alice Wordsworth and Julia Salkin. It’s been very exciting to detonate the show from the inside out, and I feel like we’ve gotten much closer to the heart of it. But no doubt, if we get a London run, the show will evolve again. That’s the exciting thing about theatre. It’s a living, breathing thing. It’s so much more alive than I think people realise. One major flaw of the last version of Body Count was that I think I tried to make God good. But the God I was raised with, who was omnipresent in my life, was anything but good.

Has your attitude towards sex work and its effects on women changed at all since before you put on this show?

No, my feelings towards sex work are the same as they were the moment I first conceived this play. Sex work is a necessity for women within a patriarchal society. And for 99% of sex workers, it’s a case of survival, not something that’s really up for debate. But the questions we ask around sex work must evolve from “Why are so many women joining OnlyFans?” to “Why do so many women feel OnlyFans is the only way to gain financial freedom and power in their lifetimes?” Sex work isn’t the problem. Society is.

What type of audience do you think would enjoy Body Count?

What I took away from performing the show at the Fringe was the realisation that I had accidentally written a show for men. I think Women watch it and they just get it; there’s not really a take away for them. But it’s been men largely who have been struck by it.
I think women and the queer community will find a lot of joy in the show, but men are probably the people who most need to see it.

What’s coming up next for you after this run? Are there any other projects you’re working on?

Yes, I think this is finally the year to get my dark comedy TV series Model Behaviour away. It’s been such a long time coming, and now with the America’s Next Top Model documentary blowing up and so many eyes back on that industry, it feels like the right time. I’m also excited to get my teeth into my first short film, which is set to be directed by Beth Park this summer, another up-and-coming female director I feel very lucky to be collaborating with. My goal for 2026 is to keep creating work that people can actually see. No one becomes a writer for their work to languish on the laptop of producers for years and years. So in 2026 I’m not leaving it up to the industry to give me the green light anymore. I’m getting things away myself.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

‘The Amazing Sex life of Rabbits’ and ‘Elouise Eftos: Australia’s First Attractive Comedian’ are playing this month at the Soho Playhouse alongside Body Count. Two more shows you don’t want to miss!

Follow the play on Instagram here.

Please note, Body Count contains sexual content and is intended for adults 18+ only. Tickets are available at https://www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/body-count