EDINBURGH 2026 Review: PINK RABBIT (Preview), Underbelly Bristo Square
Runs until 30 August.
This show was reviewed during previews.
This is a delight of a play. It’s hilarious, uncomfortable, tender, thought-provoking, and utterly captivating. Amna, a young Pakistani Muslim girl, has just turned 18. Desperate to carve out an identity for herself after feeling invalidated in her super conservative household, she opens an OnlyFans. She’s been fetishised for being South-Asian, she might as well be paid for it! “It’s all a game,” she says, pointing her hot pink vibrator at the audience as if it were a gun. And on the surface, it is indeed all fun and games. But Farah Ashraf goes deeper, analysing the societal expectations of immigrant parents, their hopes for their children, and the immeasurable pain of growing up.
A poignant social critique hides beneath the sheen of naughty humour and fun cultural jabs. With an exuberant disposition and a silver tongue, Amna’s sexuality explodes under the forgiveness of online anonymity. However, though she is confident and risqué on camera, she still feels invisible in real life. Her overbearing mother wants nothing but a solid career for her, repressing every inch of her individuality, and her crush keeps ignoring her while he snogs popular white girls at parties. The shame creeps up on her constantly. “I am guilty of being curious,” she muses.
A layered script slowly peels back to reveal a well-rounded exploration of the significance of eroticism and its cultural relevance, but also of generational incompatibility and parental misunderstandings. The writing is colloquial and youthful, sprinkled with occasional moments of poetry, but turns somber and harrowing as needed. When her rebellious streak hits a wall, she cracks and we see through her and the generations of women who came before her, turning Pink Rabbit into a reflection on inherited trauma.
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