Hannah Reilly on hosting a sex podcast: ‘I became the sex girl’
When Hannah Reilly started hosting a steamy podcast in Australia, her provocative on-air persona began to leak into her personal life, ultimately inspiring one-woman show, Roleplay. She chats to Isy Santini about rising misogyny, contemporary feminism and learning to embrace earnestness
Carrie Bradshaw meets Bonnie Blue in Roleplay, a provocative new one-woman show from Australian comic Hannah Reilly about a struggling feminist podcaster who rebrands as a provocative ‘slutfluencer’. Her new brief: sex up the podcast, pump the erotic capital, and fame and fortune will surely follow. ‘It’s a real rollercoaster ride,’ says Reilly. ‘I’ve heard it described as a freight train and it feels like that to perform.’ Roleplay walks a tightrope of tones in its dissection of sex, power and the economics of attention. ‘It sort of begins as what feels like stand-up, takes a turn into psychological thriller and makes a deep descent to hell by the end.’
It’s a familiar story for Reilly, whose own experiences in podcasting laid the foundations for Roleplay. Early in her career, she was offered a position hosting a sex and relationships podcast on one of Australia’s biggest radio stations. ‘Pretty much overnight I became the sex girl,’ she recalls. ‘I’m like an A-type theatre kid who knows how to fulfil a brief, so I was like, “you want me to be this really provocative, slutty, ragebait character? I can be that.” And that persona kind of leaked out into my real life and had this massive ripple effect on my life and my relationships.’ Ten years on, Reilly is finally in a place where she can explore the experience through her art with the fearlessness and honesty it deserves. ‘When you have to crawl into bed for an entire weekend after submitting a draft, you know you’re onto something.’
A co-production between Francesca Moody Productions and Global Creatures, whose prior works include Fleabag and Moulin Rouge! The Musical respectively, Reilly’s creation is in experienced hands. Roleplay is ‘incisive, uncomfortable and irresistibly current’, says Carmen Pavlovic of Global Creatures. ‘Reilly has created something that speaks directly to the moment we’re living in, where identity, economy and performance are in constant negotiation.’ Likewise for Francesca Moody, taking on Roleplay was a no-brainer: ‘It is a piece of theatre that I just knew we had to produce and I can’t think of anywhere better than the Edinburgh Fringe to start its journey. It’s bold, unflinching, achingly funny, prescient and, above all, entertaining, made with artists who are daring to take risks.’
While written and performed by Reilly, the final product is a collaboration with director Paige Rattray whose other works include the award-winning Fangirls. ‘Paige is such an experienced dramaturg and a brilliant mind,’ gushes Reilly. ‘She really helped support me in taking bigger risks than I ever thought I could.’ In fact, it was Rattray who nudged Reilly to star in Roleplay. ‘It’s written very much in my voice and we made the decision that authenticity was potentially more important than polished craft,’ explains Reilly. ‘It’s so important for direct connection with the audience. It’s not a traditional play format; it’s closer to stand-up in that way.’
Though there’s an autobiographical seed within the show, it is equally inspired by the modern rise in misogyny, with both Donald Trump’s nasty presidency and the horrific revelations of the Gisèle Pelicot case influencing Reilly’s writing. ‘It’s becoming more relevant by the week and by the day. Unfortunately, I think this is going to be evergreen for a while.’
Roleplay also takes a hard look at the contradictions of contemporary feminism and its role as an unsteady bulwark against the current rise in global misogyny. In the age of the personal brand where everything from identity to intimacy is commodified, does third-wave feminism have what it takes to fight back? ‘One of my favourite things the show has been doing is starting a really honest conversation between mothers and daughters who have both experienced different waves of feminism,’ says Reilly. Those relationships play a core function in Roleplay, interrogating the intergenerational conflicts between different schools of feminism. ‘A part of growing up for me has also been learning about the ways in which my mum has been right about so many things.’
The state of the world may be dire, but Reilly refuses to give in to defeatism. Without giving too much away, she says: ‘It ends on this beautiful little candle of hope and resilience, the idea that you can go through something that you think would destroy you and it doesn’t.’ In a meta twist, working on a show about resilience has helped Reilly realise her own capabilities. ‘Being from a comedy background, I’ve been kind of allergic to earnestness for most of my life, and gaining the confidence to be able to write something that is both really funny but earns its moments of complete sincerity has been such a cool thing.’
Roleplay, Summerhall, 6–31 August, 5.50pm.