Persistent and Nasty

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series *TW for discussion of DV/DA* Elaine chats with creator and performer of LA Baby Ambrosine Davies. LA Baby Zoo Playground – Playground 2 Now– 24th August Time: 15:35 LA Baby The unbelievable truth of nearly a decade in LA from award-winning actor and comedian Ambrosine Davies (Funny or Die, The Inbetweeners). the darkly comedic story of Davies’ nine ye...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with co-creator and performer of Baby in The Mirror Stella Marie Sophie. Baby In The Mirror Summerhall – Red Lecture Theatre Now– 25th August Time: 15:15 (60 mins) Baby In The Mirror The debut show from a new Queer Femme-led theatre company Second Adolescence, exploring queer parenthood - the how and the why - through the lens of three Qu...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chat’s with Samia Rida about her new autobiographical show Kidnap. Directed by the BBC’s Gareth Edwards and produced by BAFTA Elevate producer Gina Lyons, writer and actor Samia Rida’s blazing autobiographical comedy-drama explores Saudi, family, and how the act of kidnap can involve a swimming pool… Kidnap Dram at Gilded Balloon Patter House N...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine and Louise chat with Frisky (Laura Corcoran) about her new show Frisky’s Reshuffle. What’s been happening since she was last at the festival – motherhood and going solo in her act and reminiscing with Louise about the good old days of the Fringe. In Louise’s words having Frisky back means “the Fringe is healed” Frisky’s Reshuffle Palais du Vari...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with performer, comedian and creator Liz Coin about her show as an Izzy Sunshine Izzy Sunshine @ Bothie at Gilded Balloon Patter House Now – 10th August Time: 13:20 (60 mins) Izzy Sunshine Lizzy Sunshine! sees Coin channelling her inner child as she carries a would-be-double-act, alone, punctuated with the question of whether her show par...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with performer and creator Gabrielle Cabrera about her show My Life as an “Inspirational Porn” Star! My Life as an "Inspirational Porn" Star! @ Just the Snifter Room at Just the Tonic at The Mash House Now – 11th August Time: 20:35 (60 mins) My Life as an “Inspirational Porn” Star is a blend of stand-up, burlesque, and existential dread....

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with performer and co-creator Emily Carding about their show Timonopoly TIMONOPOLY – George Mackay Brown Library at Scottish Storytelling Centre Now - 12 August (not 6th) Time: 12:20 (60 mins) A Shakespeare play turned into a board game with interactive elements and politics thrown in for good measure. It's quite a hard thing to describe...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with performer and co-creator Maria Teresa Creasey and Rebecca Reeves director and co-creator of Degenerate. Degenerate – Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker One) 30 July - 23 August (not 5, 12, 19) Time: 23:10 (60 mins) She is style, she is grace, she has blood dripping from her face: she’s Degenerate. Degenerate Maria just wants to perform for...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with performer Michelle Monteith about Red Like Fruit Red Like Fruit – Traverse Theatre – various times Award-winning Canadian theatre company 2b returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the UK premiere of critically acclaimed playwright Hannah Moscovich’s (Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes with Hugh Jackman) honest, raw, and g...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Elaine chats with writer, performer and musician Jay Eddy about her new show Driving in Circles – McIntosh at Gilded Balloon @ Appleton Tower 4 - 24 Aug13:30 A musical comedy that encourages audiences to take a different approach to trauma and to see the light and beauty in life. Driving in Circles Driving in Circles - Get in the car, we’re taking a r...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Today Elaine chats with writer creators Milly Blue (Basement Jaxx, BBC Radio 4) & Jessie Maryon Davies (Kate Nash, Lips Choir) about their new show Elysium - Ruby Gilded Balloon @Appleton Tower 4 - 24 Aug 12:20 An comedy horror with music by Ghouls Aloud. It’s another must see. Elysium Meet Elysium Court’s newest arrivals - an aspirational couple in t...

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series Today Elaine chats with writer Amanda Verlaque about her play This Sh*t Happens All The Time. An exciting new one woman show. A must see. This Sh*t Happens All The Time - Studio 4 Assembly Studios @George Sq 4th - 25th August 13.20 This Sh*t Happens All The Time - Acclaimed Northern Irish writer Amanda Verlaque presents her powerful, timely one-woman...

Elaine and Louise chat with the Stacey Simmons author and psychotherapist about her book The Queens Path and the 2-day workshop event which is taking place in Glasgow on the 23rd and 24th of August 2025 at the Grand central Hotel. We discuss the event, the creation of the book, the studio system and much, much more. As part of our ongoing mission to remove barriers and support creative connection,...

Elaine and Louise chat with the brilliant Zara Gladman about her Edinburgh Festival Show Zara Gladman is… Aileen: Cameron’s Gap Year Fundraiser and her new BBC Scotland show Good For Her. We talk about the full circle moment for all of is that this podcast is. As Zara and her writing partner Laura’s script was the very first thing we selected for the very first Persistent and Nasty event. We also...

Elaine chats with co-founder of F-Bomb Theatre co Rachel O’Regan about their latest project Monumental which is a walking tour of the imagined statues of five women from history and their connection to Edinburgh. We also chat with two of the writers Hannah Low, Emery Schaffer and the director Emily Ingram. F-Bomb are working with Edinburgh 900 celebrations to brig Monumental to the audiences. In a...

Elaine chats with Katch Holmes Creative Producer and Programmer and steerer of Knockengorroch Festival. We chat everything from the beginnings of the festival, finding your North Star, music and how it makes you feel and much more. KNOCKENGORROCH FESTIVAL 22ND -25TH MAY 2025 TICKET LINK Link to hear Kuchke Knockengorroch and The Green Gathering Two of the UK’s longest-running grassroots festivals...

Wild Rose Elaine and Louise chat with writer of Wild Rose Nicole Taylor along with Wild Rose herself Dawn Sievewright and co-stars Louise McCarthy and Hannah Jarret-Scot. A beautiful chat during the press night celebrations talking about the joy of feeling represented on stage, seeing important and truthful working class Scottish stories and women finding themselves and following what drives them....

4 STARS ACROSS THE BOARD This is our very first MAIL BAG episode. We asked the question via our Instagram stories if anyone had a topic/thought they would like us to discuss and we felt this question was one we had to answer. The Question: PERSISTENT AND NASTY WHAT ARE YOU TRUE THOUGHTS ABOUT SCOTTISH THEATRE CRITICS? Elaine and Louise give you an honest and a little spicy answer. If you want to c...

THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH Persistent and Nasty is & years old. We can’t believe it. In this episode Elaine and Louise celebrate the achievements of the last seven years. We cover everything from how we started, the ups and downs, the hard truth that by advocating for everyone in our industry we might not work again, that even if we do work we can fall into the trap of wanting to been seen as “nice and e...

Elaine chats with actor, writer, Molly Geddes We talk about Molly’s short film Where We Stop which was created to be part of an initiative for Glasgow Girls Club. The initiative aims to raise awareness of Violence Against Women and Girls among young women aged 16-21 in Glasgow as well as highlight information about the available support services. We also chat about being a survivor and how it feel...

In this RE-LISTEN episode Elaine chats with actor, writer, director Virginia Gay. We talk about Virginia’s Fringe First award winning show Cyrano. We talk talking old stories and bringing them to new audiences without repeating the same story but bringing a fresh perspective to it and how vital that is for us all. We talk about the wonderful tool that is comedy that let’s us reach our audience in...

Final episode of our spooky season. A perfect episode for the crossover between Halloween and Christmas, when the nights are darker and colder and you’re not quite sure if you heard something or caught a glimpse of something out the corner of your eye. Ungetatable by Ellie Zeegan and Janet Coulson. Voice Actors: Eileen O’Shaughnessy – Rebecca Dunn George Orwell – Fergus John McCann Woman – Elaine...

Spooky Season. Next up is a spooky season is It comes with rain by Siobhan Murphy . Voice Actor: Amira Al Shanti Siobhan Murphy Siobhan is a Glasgow-based freelance writer and editor with a background in ELT and educational publishing. I am a passionate writer, and, previously successfully applied to pitch a fantasy novel to publishers and agents at Xpo North festival in Inverness. I also had a pi...

Spooky Season. Next up is a spooky season is Bite Pattern by Charlotte Smith. Voice Actors: Kath – ChloeAnn Taylor Imy - Rebekah Lumsden Charlotte Smith Charlotte Smith is an Edinburgh-based playwright. She studied Drama Writing at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and her work has been performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, Òran Mór, the Scottish Youth Theatre, the CCA, the Golden Goose Theatre and...

Next up on our spooky season series is Living History by Torya Winters. Voice Actor Megan Lovat TORYA WINTERS Torya is an Edinburgh based actor and writer, and graduate of RCS. She was shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Club Flash Fiction Award in 2021, and her short plays have been performed at the Blazing Hyena scratch night and workshopped at Stage to Page in Glasgow. She is currently working on...