(We Indulge in) a Bit of Roll Play – Life, disability, and sexual freedom affirming work from Birds of Paradise (theatre review) 4 Stars

As we enter the space, two huge screens at the side of the stage pronounce exactly who the star of this evening is going to be. Rosie Jones is not up front and centre, but stage left and stage right, until she appears to announce herself and remind us that she is the star of this evening, and why it was that we bought our tickets.

Part stand-up, part narrative, this introduces thematically what we’re going to see tonight: sex and disability. Once Jones departs, ensuring we are relaxed, it’s on with the story.

19-year-old Ben wakes up one night to discover on the kitchen table his mother and father, 20 years married, indulging in sex. It embarrasses him. He confides in best friend Amy, with whom he once had a relationship, but who is now the camera operator of his OnlyFans account.

Ben posts porn of himself masturbating. Making his content free, some subscribers give him money, giving him a form of financial security. Meanwhile, Ben is stuck in his bedroom and has been for the last six months. This is partly due to the university to which he has been enrolled unable to get him into the building, because Ben is a wheelchair user. He is therefore doing an online course, stuck in his bedroom. It is in his bedroom that he films his OnlyFans content. Those giant screens that I mentioned bear artistic and creative shots of his body.

One evening as his parents snoop on his laptop and engage in messaging – pretending to be Ben – with Crip God (Rosie Jones) who decides to wind them up. Ben confronts them in the kitchen where tension, revelations, confrontations and confusion follow.

Mum, dad, Ben and best friend Amy, who has just arrived, confront the secrets including Ben’s negative experience in a night club in Liverpool six months ago that also lead to the self-imposed exile his parents find troubling. Mum and dad are struggling to work out how to deal with Ben, whilst Ben is struggling to deal with how he sees himself and gets himself laid. Enter Crip God who confronts parents and Ben with their honest truth. Ben is asked what a night club would be like and when he describes it, Crip God invites him to the all-inclusive, ironically named, Reasonable Adjustments.

The narrative then swings, if you pardon the pun, into the burlesque performances of an ensemble, that includes Eilidh Ellery, Freak the Clown, Roxy Nova, Myla Corvidae (Mars) and Indrid Heron in an added experience of what an inclusive night club with cabaret would look like.

Discussions around sex and disability can be awkward. Discussions around sex and your children can be awkward. Discussions around finding your parents having sex can be awkward. Throw the three of them into one melting pot and what we get is a confusing mixture of narrative exposition and tough questions and answers. At one point as Crip God, Rosie Jones claims that they don’t have the answer but are bloody good at questions. And that is what really works here – it’s awkward, sniggering, serious and entertaining, with a snide eye of contempt for not trying to get things confronted. It makes refusing to give glub soundbite answers work.

It can be difficult to avoid claiming anything delivered by an inclusive company as a panacea to all the ills in the context of the subject matter presented onstage. This is not a panacea to sex and disability. It is another layer of discussion that we should be open, honest and having. Disabled people need sex. Who knew? They did.

It also means that it is not without flaws. I found the parents a little clichéd.  They were decent people floundering. I felt they gave in too readily and the struggle to understand was a little lost when they were confronted – they just gave in to the message. But it is a comedy and not Greek Tragedy.

The comedy was excellent, delivered with great skill and performances were delivered with the right touch of anguish and anger. Alan MacKenzie as Dave and Zoe Hunter as Maggie managed to present us with parents that I recognised. Ed Larkin as Ben and Ava Duncan as Amy gave us a double act with fully rounded two sides of that coin, the disabled recluse and the ‘normal’ friend who struggled to really understand but tried their absolute best to be there rather than just being yet another person who would judge.

Rosie Jones, of course, as Crip God manages to fill the stage with her presence.

The narrative structure is there.

It is directed really well, and Robert Softley-Gale has once again demonstrated he has a very deft understanding of how to give us the narrative and the storyline, at the same time, enhancing the theatricality of it all.

As such, that theatricality has everything you would expect of a Birds of Paradise production. We have integrated signing. We have the audio descriptions. We have captions. And this cements their embedded access. What also was good to see was two BSL interpreters. Yvonne Strain, an increasingly well used BSL interpreter, totally and utterly integrated into the production, showing a deft comic turn when moving the wine glasses out of the road when mum and dad decide to get frisky. Alongside is actor, director and producer Jamie Rae, making an impression onstage without detracting from the action or pulling focus, performing as an interesting choral addition to the action.

Technically, the lighting from Simon Hayes was fantastic. Sound from Chris Gorman was exceptional, but it was the design by Kat Radeva that really did demonstrate not just access within Tramway One, but also the red, the black, the colour scheme, the way in which we move from the bedroom into the kitchen was not just simplistic, but effective.

Once we got into the burlesque at the end, it was in its own element. The cabaret tables to the side also added that feeling of trying to breach the fourth wall, giving us a real sense that this was highly inclusive. Whilst I loved the humour, and Birds of Paradise under Robert Softley Gale have always pushed that envelope, they have set the bar high. We have progressed a long way since TV dealt with sex and disability, Donal and Sally with Gerard Kelly being a prime example of getting it wrong whilst trying to get it right, and this is a fantastic addition to the canon of work bringing our attention to the issues around disability.

I found this to be not only life affirming, but disability affirming and sexually freedom affirming. I found it to be a theatrical addition to what we do in Scotland that is above and beyond accessibility. It’s challenging us in a mainstream setting to take what they’re telling us and include it ourselves. And that, I think, is the biggest challenge. It’s one of Crip God’s questions. And it’s a bloody good one. Wonder who might know the answer?

(We Indulged In) A Bit of Roll Play – run now ended

Birds of Paradise Theatre Company

Tramway Theatre, Glasgow

Review Date 21^st February 2026