May 5, 2025
Playfight, written by Julia Grogan and staged at Soho Theatre in April 2025, tackled urgent themes of consent, sexual violence and the impact of online pornography on young people. The play was inspired in part by a 2019 conversation between writer Julia Grogan and RLC Associate Tenant Professor Susan Edwards, who provided legal insight into the “rough sex” defence and the wider cultural harms affecting women today.
Following the performance, RLC sat down with Julia and Susan to reflect on how the play evolved, the real cases that shaped it and the vital need for legal reform.
INTERVIEW WITH JULIA GROGAN- WRITER OF “PLAYFIGHT”
Playfight tackles heavy and urgent topics like porn, sexual assault, and the experiences of young girls — what initially inspired you to write this story?
Back in 2019, it was in the news that a woman had been strangled to death by her Tinder date, and her killer’s defence had claimed it was just a “sex game gone wrong”. The facts surrounding the case shook me to my core. After the murder, the man had watched porn in the hotel room, gone out and purchased a suitcase and buried her in a nearby forest. In terms of consenting to her own murder, I’d never heard anything more outrageous in my life. I’d never written a play before but I felt so much anger, I suddenly had the urge to write. At the time I was working behind the bar at the Royal Court Theatre, and I applied to their Introduction to Playwriting course with the pages. When I got a place I knew exactly the story I wanted to tell.
On reflection I think Playfight really came from a place of wanting to try and make sense of or unpick the traumas I’d seen and experienced myself in my teenage years. How as kids we’re meant to digest ugly things like lack of consent, young deaths, toxicity of self image, authority, power, ambition. I think we underestimate how hard those years are. For all the beauty and carefree times, there’s a darkness in the uncertainty of teen years. I particularly felt this around my relationship to sex and pornography. So Playfight was also born from this place. The characters, who I ended up calling Lucy, Zainab and Keira, really are three opposing corners of my mind wrestling with each other, trying to find some answers.
How did RLC’s Associate Door Tenant, Professor Susan Edwards inspire you in writing this play?
Susan met with me for a coffee outside the central criminal court, and talked me through the laws surrounding rough sex. The conversation often meandered to our childhoods and stories of friends and partners etc. We made projections of what we think may lead to this rise in violence. Susan was key to helping me realise that the story I wanted to tell wasn’t set in a courtroom, but a love story between friends. Off the back of Susan’s advice, I also did a lot of research from the We Can’t Consent To This charity, a website dedicated to pushing the message: you can’t consent to your own murder. Tales of women who have been let down by the judicial system, where murderers have displayed – often reported – violent behaviour, and received lighter sentences. In 2021 a judge gave a manslaughter sentence claiming the woman liked ‘risky sexual practice’. This despite the fact her previous boyfriends stated this wasn’t the case, and the killer’s ex-partner stated he had a history of strangling her against her will. He was sentenced to four years for her death.
Susan was instrumental to the early stages of Playfight. She inspires me so much, her bravery, her intelligence and her ferocity.
Image from production. Picture credit Mihaela Bodlovic
How do you think the prevalence of online pornography is shaping young people’s perceptions of consent, intimacy and identity today?
I find the online presence of pornography both terrifying and dangerous. Strangulation and violence are casually seeping onto the mainstream. You only need to look on the homepage of popular sites such as Porn Hub to see a young woman being strangled by a much older man. More often than not she’s not looking like she’s entirely consenting to it either. I haven’t got children, but I would be absolutely haunted if my son saw this. Or my daughter. What message is it sending? Violence against women in a sexual context is slapped all over gaming adverts and games themselves that kids can play. The average age of someone’s first encounter of pornography is 13. The type of pornography made and distributed is harmful to an adults perception of sex, let alone a child. Setting such unrealistic expectations is dangerous to people’s mental health and safety. And displaying violence towards women during sex, in my opinion, should be illegal. I’ve felt it in my personal life, when I was dating as a younger woman. And from conversations with my friends, we’ve all felt this increase since pornography got so brutal. Our male friends feel the weight of the expectation too.
What conversations or changes do you hope Playfight will spark among audiences, especially younger ones?
I’m praying that anyone who sees Playfight, especially younger people, will get talking to their friends and challenging themselves to avoid being bystanders. Though we can’t necessarily, as individuals, change the law when it comes to rough sex and pornography, we can be active in our friends’ lives. To live partly in their skin too, so that if we notice something is wrong we’re having open conversations. If a young person can come out of my play and feel seen, I have done my job.
My biggest aim would be to change the shape of the media’s depiction of sex. We should not be seeing violence against women in any context of gaming, pornography, advertising, ‘how to’ articles etc. Further legal reforms are desperately needed in jurisdictions where the “rough sex” defence is still allowed, ensuring that consent cannot be used to justify serious harm or death during sexual activity. That’s my biggest aim with the play, to get the law and the media to wake up.
If you could sum up the mission or heart of Playfight in just a few words, what would it be?
Protect our young.
INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR SUSAN EDWARDS
Where did your initial conversation with Julia take place?
We first met at a coffee shop opposite the Royal Courts of Justice – a fitting setting for what would become a deeply legal and emotional conversation.
What was it like watching Playfight for the first time?
Like all powerful theatre, it was totally immersive. The writing was bold, provocative, and emotionally raw, exploring the struggles of three young women grappling with identity, intimacy, and friendship. The death of one character following rough sex raised urgent questions about consent and force—reminding the audience of the real-life risks of strangulation and choking.
Did the play reflect what you had originally discussed with Julia?
It surpassed expectations. Julia translated our conversation into a piece that defies traditional narrative boundaries, powerfully capturing the complexities of friendship, shame, and survival. The play’s message was clear: support young women, listen without judgment, and understand their lived experiences.
What legal change do you hope for?
We need systemic change. That includes:
-Closing loopholes in the Online Safety Act to regulate violent misogynist games like No Mercy.
-Strengthening enforcement under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to ensure rough sex isn’t trivialised.
-Amending the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to criminalise the non-consensual filming of intimate images.
-Recognising misogyny as a hate crime, particularly to address the influence of figures like Andrew Tate and Trump.
For more info on the production please click here