A POWERFUL play penned by a young Belfast female writing team is set to debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this week.

Float, written by Orla Graham and Kirby Thompson (both 25), played at the Dublin Fringe last year and at the Mac Theatre in Belfast in June. It tells the story of a young female student who is raped during a house party and the impact this has on the victim and her group of friends.

As well as co-writing the play, Orla also performs one of the roles on stage. She said her background in acting and Kirby’s degree in English provides “a nice combination” for them to explore issues that they care about. Their creative process sometimes sees them writing in the same room, while on other occasions they would work separately and then bring their ideas together.
 
“Kirby and I usually start writing something new with brainstorming ideas – what are funny things that happen in everyday life that are incredibly mundane but are hilarious. And then we’ll develop scenarios to see what we can bring to this and either write together or write two separate scenes of the same things and then come together.”
 
Float came about because both women were becoming increasingly frustrated reading about sexual assault in the media.

Orla added: “It portrayed victims of assault in really specific lights that we thought wasn’t representative – this idea of a perfect victim and that doesn’t exist. So Kirby and I got together and said we’re sick of seeing assault victims being portrayed in a certain light, how can we change that and what do we want to see. How can we change the story and the narrative that’s being spun. So that’s how Float came about. We spent a year researching the issue.”
 
Orla and Kirby are also determined through their writing to change the narrative around female characters on stage. Orla said in theatre women are mostly portrayed as secondary characters.
 
“They were always someone’s wife, someone’s pregnant partner, someone’s sister – so we wanted to write for young women who are different, who are complex, who have issues going on which you don’t see in the media. 
 
“So that is why we wanted to write Float – to give voices to young women that aren’t often heard and to change and to give a different voice on what assault is in the media, TV and film.

“I believe that we are part of young female writers who are trying to change the narrative of the way women are portrayed in theatre and what issues they go through in theatre. I genuinely believe that there is a great cohort of young female northern Irish writers at the minute who are doing it and we’re just two of them. You’ve got a bunch of young women who are slowly but surely chipping away in northern Irish theatre as to what women look like.”
 
Float runs from 1-25 August at Assembly Roxy at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.