It’s 4 months until this year’s Edinburgh Fringe festival starts and a few weeks ago I got to sit down with my first interviewee of festival season: New York-based writer and performer Katy Murphy. As one of the creatives behind the immersive and interactive show ‘(No) Refunds’, Katy is returning to Edinburgh for a full run this year after 5 days at Just The Tonic in 2025.
Produced by Olivia Winn and directed by Kelsey Robins, the show centres on “what it takes to become a star” and sees the performer take on the role of Tiffany Gold: a super confident game show host, who guides a willing participant ‘Star Player’ through various activities. If the Star Player wins the game, they have the chance to earn a refund on their premium ticket, and anyone has the opportunity to sign up for this role beforehand. Intrigued by the show concept, I recently had the opportunity to chat to Katy and find out how she got into the arts, what inspired the creation of such a unique piece of theatre and also learn what she is most excited for, returning to the Edinburgh Fringe this year.
Arts background
Katy attributes childhood experiences as the reasons why she started performing. At around age 10, she headed to a residential camp in Upstate New York and took part in Wacky Wednesday events with a friend, presenting a recurring sketch called ‘If Boys Came to Camp’. This experience ignited a passion for performing, and later led to Katy studying playwriting and acting at Northwestern University. Even though teachers said “if you can do anything else, go do it”, she realised that “I can’t do anything else”.
Katy explains that “in the playwriting program [at Northwestern], you can’t be in the shows that you write. And when you’re in the acting program, you can act in other people’s shows, but you’re really only acting in other people’s shows.” Watching Fleabag on TV opened Katy’s eyes to the concept of the solo show and ‘(No) Refunds’ is the first time that she really invented something to be in on her own.
Introduction to (No) Refunds
Early concepts began in 2020 though the format of Zoom Theatre, but when the world started to open up, early readers of the work encouraged Katy to reframe ‘(No) Refunds’ as an in-person show. Skip forward a few years to Autumn 2024 and the show had its first outing.
Whilst ‘(No) Refunds’ “technically isn’t a solo show” because it can’t happen without the “other two bodies on stage” (the Star Player and Stage Manager Alex), Katy initially questioned if the concept of the solo show is “an egotistical thing”. The performer was inspired by the question: “what is the thing that only you can do?” and says that solo shows are less common in the USA than the UK.
Gameshow format
Always wanting to create ‘(No) Refunds’ as an interactive show, Katy is “very good at entering a room, meeting with a stranger while in character and getting something out of them”. With the help of Grant Kennedy Lewis as Stage Manager Alex, Katy in character as Tiffany Gold takes the Star Player through a series of games which have been randomly chosen by the audience and each activity questions whether they have got what it takes to become a star.
Katy says that Tiffany Gold is the “part of me that I really have shoved down that I’m trying to embrace more” and aesthetically is “a combination of Dolly Parton, Vanna White and Miss Piggy in human form”. Tiffany “would sell out the love of her life if it meant that she could book Broadway” and to the performer is considered a “creature that is like pure artifice”. Tiffany Gold takes each Star Player’s comments “neutrally” and always aims to make the guest “look as good as possible every night” through her hosting duties.
Reflecting on last year’s Fringe
Katy mentions that lots of people say you should “try to go [to Edinburgh] as an audience member before you go as a performer”, but their team “set this goal that they want to go to Fringe without having any idea really what they were doing”. Through crowdfunding they managed to raise funds for a 5-day run at Just the Tonic during the middle of the festival. She also says that by starting their run mid-August, when other shows had reviews already, it was “really hard to compete as a show with unknowns for five days.”
But the whole experience led Katy and Producer Olivia to ask themselves, “can we learn more?”. As individuals that “learn on their feet”, Katy says “the amount we learned from being there for those five days was… I feel like I went to a Master’s program in a week.”.
Looking to the 2026 festival
This year they “went about it really differently”. They have Marketing plans, wanted to do a full run and only applied to a few venues. They also learnt from their 2025 midday time slot that “most people who want to see [(No) Refunds] are still asleep at noon” and between 8pm and midnight is ideal for their show. Despite these learnings, Katy acknowledges that their 2025 run was “absolutely to get the [Fringe] experience and learn about it from the inside”.
Aside from getting to drink Irn-Bru again, Katy is “really excited to get to do this show for a full month.” From an athletic perspective as an artist, she is also “excited to see what this becomes when it’s an endurance challenge as a performer”.
Catch ‘(No) Refunds’ at the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe
It was so exciting to have the opportunity to find out some more about this novel show and concept from Katy. It certainly sounds like a unique piece of interactive theatre. ‘(No) Refunds’ is at Gilded Balloon, Patter House (The Penny) (venue 24) from 5th – 31st August (except 18th). Performances start at 21:40, with the show on sale via the EdFringe website now.
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