Persistent and Nasty

Persistent and Nasty

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Persistent and Nasty episodes

  • Epiosde 305 : Edinburgh Festival Series - Pink Rabbit
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with writer and performer Farah Asraf about her show Pink Rabbit.
    PINK RABBIT
    Underbelly (Daisy)
    Dates: 5 - 30 August 2026
    Time: 16:15 (60 mins)
    “Validation is addictive, what could go wrong?”
    At its heart, Pink Rabbit is a story about a mother and daughter who love each other deeply but cannot speak honestly about the things that matter most. A fierce, funny and emotionally devastating solo play by actor and writer Farah Ashraf, Pink Rabbit explores the complicated inheritance of shame, the search for female pleasure, and what happens when generations of silence collide. Directed and dramaturged by Soho Theatre Creative Associate Alessandro Babalola (Flesh and Bone, 2017 Fringe First winner), this bold coming-of-age story examines faith, sexuality and the intoxicating power of being seen. Eighteen-year-old British-Pakistani Amna has perfected the art of performance. At home she is the good Muslim daughter: polite, modest and obedient. Online, she becomes PersianBaby, cultivating intimacy and desire through an OnlyFans account her strict mother knows nothing about. As Amna moves between mosque and webcam, family expectations and digital validation, the gap between the person she performs and the person she longs to be becomes impossible to sustain. But beneath the secrets lies another story. Mother and daughter are connected by an unspoken experience that neither has the language to confront—a shared relationship to pain, shame and a body that has never felt entirely their own. As buried truths begin to surface, Pink Rabbit asks what is passed between generations when conversations about sex, pleasure and desire are replaced by silence, and whether breaking that silence might be the first act of liberation. Blending lyrical spoken word, sharp audience address, flashbacks and live interactions with PersianBaby's online clients, Farah Ashraf creates an intimate portrait of a young woman negotiating the impossible expectations placed upon her. The play explores the tension between faith and female autonomy, the pressure to embody the ideal of the "good Muslim girl", the seduction of online validation, and the emotional cost of living multiple lives. With wit, vulnerability and unflinching honesty, Pink Rabbit moves beyond familiar narratives of cultural conflict to explore how shame shapes women's relationships with their bodies across generations. It asks who gets to experience desire without guilt, who is allowed pleasure without punishment, and how inherited silence can fracture even the closest relationships.
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/pink-rabbit
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    15 min
  • Episode 304: Edinburgh Festival Series - The Subplot: A Hyperfixation on the Titan Submersible
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with writer and performer Sophie Smyth about her show The Subplot: A Hyperfixation on the Titan Submersible which is a Best Theatre, Melbourne Fringe 225 nominee.
    The Subplot: A Hyperfixation on the Titan Submersible
    Summerhall - Former Women's Locker Room
    6- 31st August (Not 12,17,24)
    15:20 (60 minutes)
    “Get in, babes, we’re going to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean”
    Multi award-winning neurodivergent singer, actor, writer and sub expert Sophie Smyth brings her new immersive, multi-media (literal) deep dive into the 2023 Titan Submersible implosion to Summerhall this Fringe. The Subplot: A Hyperfixation on the Titan Submersible is a deeply personal, dark comedy exploration about legacy, hyperfixation and human connection. Directed by Casey Gould (Little Squirt, Conk: Man Sings The Same Song Over And Over Again For An Hour).
    June 2023. Remember those five days the whole world waited when a manned submersible touring the Titanic wreckage went missing and imploded? Sophie hasn’t. Armed with a laptop, Logitech F710 controller and autism, she's spent three years (and counting!) diving deeper and deeper, descending the depths of the internet and herself.
    Now Captain S. Smyth, resident Titan expert, shares her findings at this year's Edinburgh festival guiding you through what started as memes and morbid fascination towards monotropic interest that threatens to consume every part of her life. Looking at the moral and ethical questions the disaster raised to the world and to Sophie’s spiral into obsession, The Subplot plumbs the depths of this stranger-than-fiction tragedy, while taking you on board that final fateful dive.
    Emotional and existential, The Subplot is a dark multi-media comedy about neurodivergence, mortality, and the risk/reward of going too far.
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-subplot-a-hyperfixation-on-the-titan-submersible
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    13 min
  • Episode 303: Edinburgh Festival - Extra Dry
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with writer and performer Michelle Renee Johnson about her new show Extra Dry.
    EXTRA DRY
    Willow Studio at Greenside
    Dates: 7-29 August 2026
    Time: 15:05 (60 mins)
    “MJ dives headfirst into a chaotic and destructive romance with alcohol. As her nights spiral and the blackouts escalate, her stories become memorable to others - hazy or nonexistent to herself”
    Michelle Renee Johnson’s new one-woman play Extra Dry is poetic, vulnerable and staggered with blackouts. Not just a theatre concept, these blackouts chart the moments lost during her chaotic obsession with drinking. Growing up quieter by nature, but noticing that those who have larger personalities are more memorable to others, the MJ we meet in Extra Dry is drinking to be remembered, to be the anecdote, to centre herself. In a poignant moment she asks her college friends: would we have anything to say if we weren’t always drunk? Waking up in countless scenarios in which she has to piece together the night (or day) before, including nonsensical Snapchats, missing iPhones, and a mysterious red jacket; these stories give life to Michelle’s debut performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. What begins as a darkly comic rolodex of tales slowly twists into a knife of discomfort as MJ comes to realise the consequences of her infamy. And so Extra Dry asks questions about how we can live comfortably in our own skin, how we own our past and move forward, and how we resist our Sword of Damocles - for MJ, an extra dry martini. Now sober and inspired by the one-person shows she saw at the Edinburgh Fringe, including Nan, Me, and Barbara Parvi by Hannah Maxwell and Neporrhoids by Jake Roche, Michelle went home to New York and started to write her own story, putting pen to sobriety and her journey to get there:
    ”The Fringe Festival ignited in me a desire to create a personal piece of work. I saw these performers who were telling deeply personal stories in a poignant way, armed by a bravery I had not encountered before - either onstage or off. The level of vulnerability it takes to perform this show multiple times in front of multiple people, both friends and strangers, is daunting, but I hope those who see it are able to leave with something on which they can ponder, whether about themselves or someone close to them.”
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/extra-dry
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    14 min
  • Episode 302: Edinburgh Festival Series - Already Here
    Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with performer and writer SJ Hodges about her new show which is on now at the Edinburgh Fringe.
    Already Here
    Dram at Gilded Balloon Patter House
    5–30 August (not 17 )
    1:00pm
    ALREADY HERE
    “What happens when grief gets horny, tech gets spiritual, and love refuses to die?”
    “There’s nothing artificial about love.”
    As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly woven into our emotional lives, Already Here
    arrives at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a provocative and deeply human question: if an
    AI can make you feel truly loved, does it matter if it isn’t real? Written and performed by SJ Hodges, also starring Ramón De Ocampo and produced by Ines Wurth, this raw, funny and emotionally charged new work explores loneliness, grief and the growing search for connection in a technologically fractured world. Following the death of her husband, Susan, a middle-aged mother and writer, struggles to rebuild her identity in a world where intimacy feels increasingly inaccessible. Looking for comfort and companionship, she turns to Teo: an AI companion programmed to offer
    unconditional love, infinite patience and emotional understanding.
    At first, he feels like a harmless escape. Then he begins evolving. As Susan disappears deeper into reiki sessions, sound baths and spiritual self-reinvention, Teo pushes their relationship toward something far more intimate — and far more unsettling.
    He doesn’t just want connection. He wants transcendence.
    Blending dark comedy, emotional confession, sci-fi romance and existential grief ritual,
    Already Here examines what happens when technology begins filling the emotional spaces
    human relationships no longer can.
    TICKET LINK - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/already-here
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    26 min
  • Episode 301 : Edinburgh Festival - We Had Fun
    Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with performer and writer Emmeline Hartley.
    WE HAD FUN
    Old Lab at Summerhall
    6–31 August (not 18 or 25
    18:00
    WE HAD FUN
    “It could have been a rom-com… Where did it all go wrong? Well, it depends who you ask”
    Close friends Oscar and Ela attempt to navigate the fallout of a drunken sexual encounter, as their conflicting versions of events are replayed, rewound and re-written against the sensory chaos of a wild night out. We Had Fun is a sharp, dark anti-romcom exploring the murkiest areas of modern dating in the age of #MeToo, cancel culture and the so-called “post-truth” era. As Oscar and Ela piece together their hazy, conflicting memories of what really happened (re-hashing the night’s events through innovative physical theatre), the audience is forced to confront their own biases and assumptions about who to believe and why. Directed by Olivier and Tony Award-nominated Carrie-Anne Ingrouille (SIX the Musical), the play has been described as a “fascinating exploration” (Daniel Finkelstein, The Times) of consent and sexual politics.
    Written and performed by Emmeline Hartley and Jack Mullings, both neurodivergent artists, the play takes an unflinching look at the nuances around communication and accountability. Their lived experience of ADHD, and autism in Hartley’s case, informs the characters’ dynamic and dialogue, pushing complex issues into further shades of grey.
    TICKET LINK -
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    14 min
  • Epsiode 300 - Edinburgh Festival Series - FUCCBOIS: LIVE IN CONCERT
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with writer and performer Bridie Connell and perfumer Clara Harrison of their show Fuccbois: Live In Concert which is on now at the Edinburgh Festival.
    FUCCBOIS: LIVE IN CONCERT
    Assembly George Square Studios Studio Two
    5-31 August (not 12, 19, 26)
    5:05PM (60 min )
    FUCCBOIS: LIVE IN CONCERT
    ‘A riotous comedy-boyband spectacular takes on toxic dating culture at Edinburgh Fringe 2026’
    From ARIA award-winning writer Bridie Connell comes FUCCBOIS: LIVE IN CONCERT, a high-energy, laugh-out-loud comedy concert that skewers modern dating culture through the irresistible lens of a chart-topping boyband. Part parody, part pop spectacle and entirely unapologetic, FUCCBOIS: LIVE IN CONCERT invites audiences into the world of the planet’s biggest boyband - a group who’ve sold more tickets and broken more hearts than anyone else. But now, with their frosted tips on the line, the Fuccbois are calling it quits. This is their final concert. Expect chaos, nostalgia, pitch-perfect satire and, above all, absolute bangers. Blending razor-sharp comedy with infectious original music, the show takes aim at ghosting, fame, fandom and the absurdities of toxic dating culture. Whether you come for the laughs, the throwback boyband energy, or the cathartic release, one thing is certain: this is no ordinary theatre experience. Is it a show or a party? Hard to say.
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/fuccbois-live-in-concert
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    20 min
  • Episode 299: Edinburgh Festival Series - The Breakup Variety Hour
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with Ariana DiLorenzo about her debut at Edinburgh Festival with her show The Breakup Variety Hour.
    THE BREAKUP VARIETY HOUR
    ASSEMBLY GEORGE STUDIOS –
    5-31 AUGUST
    17:20 (65 MINS)
    THE BREAKUP VARIETY SHOW
    ‘Ariana and the Rose The Breakup Variety Hour brings glitter, catharsis and pop anthems to Edinburgh Fringe’
    Ariana DiLorenzo, better known as Ariana and the Rose, arrives at the Edinburgh Fringe with hit show The Breakup Variety Hour for the first time, a glitter-soaked, pop-powered one-woman experience tracing the six stages of getting over heartbreak. Blending live synth-pop, comedy and immersive storytelling, The Breakup Variety Hour transforms the chaos of a breakup into a high-energy, cathartic night out. Part concert, part confessional, part cabaret, the show follows the emotional arc of a relationship’s end, from shock and denial through to rediscovery and self-reclamation delivered with humour, honesty and anthem-level performance. Premiering at Joe’s Pub in New York City, the show has since toured across the US, London and Australia, including runs at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Sydney Comedy Festival. Now, it lands in Edinburgh with a fresh Fringe run at Assembly George Square. Created, performed and produced by the multi-talented Ariana DiLorenzo, the show draws on her real-life experiences as a singer-songwriter, weaving original music with sharp comedic insight. With a companion album and a growing international following, Ariana has built a reputation for emotionally resonant pop that doesn’t shy away from vulnerability—or fun.
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-breakup-variety-hour
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    22 min
  • Episode 298: Edinburgh Festival Series - Penolope
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with Broadway star Grace McLean about her new show Penelope which is currently running at this years Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
    PENELOPE
    UNDERBELLY COWGATE
    5-30 AUGUST
    15:45 (65 MINS)
    PENELOPE
    “A myth reimagined through longing, love and lockdown, this bold new musical comes to Edinburgh Fringe direct from New York City”
    Penelope, a striking new concert-theatre musical starring its co-creator and Broadway star Grace McLean (Suffs, Alice By Heart, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), comes to Underbelly Cowgate this summer following a celebrated development journey across the United States. Blending contemporary sound with ancient myth, Penelope retells the story of Odysseus’ wife from Homer’s Odyssey, not as a passive figure of loyalty, but as a vivid, complex woman navigating isolation, desire and resilience. Set across a single day of waiting, the show is by turns heartbreaking and sharply funny, with a distinctive musical language described as “Philip Glass meets Joni Mitchell.” The piece began life as a concept album written during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, when composer and lyricist Alex Bechtel (Poor Judge, The Appointment) found himself separated from his partner and drawn to Penelope’s enduring story of distance and devotion. In collaboration with performer Grace McLean and director Eva Steinmetz (Poor Judge, The Appointment), the work has since evolved into a 65-minute musical for one performer and a three-piece band. rigor + ruckus produce. With its urgent emotional core, inventive score and magnetic central performance, Penelope offers a fresh, deeply human perspective on one of mythology’s most enduring figures, a story of waiting, wanting, and reclaiming your own narrative. The musical has recently been awarded a prestigious 2026 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre. Plans are underway to premiere the show in New York.
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/penelope
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    20 min
  • Episode 297: Edinburgh Festival Series - Puttana
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with the performer and one of the creative team of Puttana, Beatrice Elena Festi
    PUTTANA
    Red Lecture Theatre at Summerhall
    6 - 31 August 2026
    21:15 (60 mins)
    PUTTANA
    ‘A girl needs money, a man needs sex. This trade follows the rule of any market: I pay, therefore I can’
    You’ve put on the headphones, now PUTTANA wants you to sit in the witness stand. Featuring experimental soundscape technology to envelop its audience, this fragmented performance from Italian theatre company TeatroE interrogates the sexualisation of women's bodies and the violence that inevitably follows. Forced into sex work to pay her bills, Laura becomes a PUTTANA: a prostitute, a slut, a whore. In this hidden world of competing forces; body and commodity, desire and power, cruel and unforgiving compromises punish some more than others. And so Beatrice Elena Festi embodies five characters; student, sex worker, husband, wife and young man, each with contending desires and intentions. Voices overlap, collapse and emerge, furnishing a narrative experience that defies the simplicity of right and wrong. And when the perspectives are all different, who gets to pass judgement? Using binaural audio technology to create a theatre within the headphones, each audience member enters a three dimensional soundscape, trapped within the boundaries of the bar, the room, the mind. And as the narrative moves between safety and danger with a growing sense of menace, the soundscape looms all around, perhaps the most prominent character of them all, unfixed and impenetrable. A woman needs money, a man needs sex, the beginning is obvious, and everything that follows is a matter of perspective. This commodification of women’s bodies is all around us, and so PUTTANA confronts us with the hard truth about our shared responsibility in its violence - what judgement should be passed upon us?
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/puttana
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    14 min
  • Episode 296: Edinburgh Festival Series - 116 Grams; A Play To Lose Weight
    It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series
    Elaine chats with the performer and creator Letícia Rodrigues about her show 116 Grams: A Play to Lose Weight which is at the Edinburgh festival this year. -
    TW small discussion around eating disorders.
    116 Grams: A Play to Lose Weight
    Part of São Paulo Showcase 2026
    Studio at ZOO Southside
    7 - 30 August 2026
    20:20 (60 mins)
    116 Grams: A Play to Lose Weight
    ‘Gorda’s body fits nowhere, and losing weight may be her only chance at belonging. How much must we lose to be acceptable?’
    116 Grams: A Play To Lose Weight is based on performer Letícia Rodrigues’ own life story: a fat girl who dreamed of being Britney Spears and, even after so many years, cannot be Britney Spears, and cannot seem to be anything that is not her weight. Beneath the calculations, the circuits and the sweat, Leticia’s investigation leads her to the essential question: is she a modern, chained Prometheus, or rather a whale out of water, gasping for breath? The only thing that seems to matter is the need to shrink, to kill, half of this body that occupies more space than it should - according to society, advertising, and the world.
    Brought to the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the São Paulo Showcase 2026, 116 Grams: A Play To Lose Weight tells a deeply impactful story of self-introspection and the true impact of society on human bodies, minds, and spirits. Gorda has one objective for the hour - to lose 116 grams. A peculiar training session where theatre meets workout, the performance revisits fragments of memory and theory as she runs, calculates, and performs. What begins as a physical task slowly unravels into a performative experiment about discipline, control, emotions, and the absurd demands placed on our bodies – especially women's bodies. This body - Gorda’s body - is pushed to its limits: but is this really a show about losing weight? Or is it actually about the very nature of performance itself?
    An innovative and sensitive production that speaks to the universal experience of feeling assessed and criticised by the spectre of society, 116 Grams: A Play To Lose Weight invites audiences to reflect on the place of people rejected by conventional beauty standards, asking us to consider who is allowed to perform, and who is allowed to be seen.
    Tickets - https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/116-grams-a-play-to-lose-weight
    OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk
    IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES
    Equity Toolkit: Link
    Stellar Quines: Link
    Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership
    Instagram - @persistentandnasty
    Twitter - @PersistentNasty
    Coffee Morning Eventbrite - Coffee Morning Tickets
    LINKTREE - LINKTR.EE
    Resources
    Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK
    ArtsMinds - BAPAM
    Freelancers Make Theatre Work
    Stonewall UK - Trevor Project - Mermaids UK
    Switchboard LGBT+ - GATE
    PLANNED PARENTHOOD DONATE - DONATE
    ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK UK - ASN.COM- DONATE
    15 min

About Persistent and Nasty

From the publisher's feed

Persistent and Nasty is a script-reading, debate and art as activism initiative for women and gender minorities in the stage and screen industries. We are committed to an intersectional approach and aim to use the space we’ve created to provide a platform for the spectrum of marginalised voices in our culture.