Persistent and Nasty

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with multidisciplinary performer Ninon Noiret about her show The Raft of the Crab.

The Raft of the Crab

Roxy Central, Assembly

Tues 18 - Mon 31 August

14:30pm (60 mins)

The Raft of the Crab

"I remember the crab chewing on my knee. Am I a leftover meal someone forgot on the table? Not rotten yet, but not fresh either. Just sitting there wondering if someone will throw me away or put me back in the fridge."

Fresh from their sold-out run at the internationally acclaimed Manipulate Festival 2026, The Raft of the Crab is a performance odyssey through the mind and body of multidisciplinary performer Ninon Noiret - an intensely personal reflection on the nature of illness, pain, healing, and transformation.

Created in collaboration with celebrated Scottish puppeteer Gavin Glover, the show blends Ninon Noiret’s background in circus and contemporary dance with puppetry, spoken text, and music by Jim Harbourne to explore and contrast the abstract world of the human mind with the tangible realities of recovery. Using puppets as alter egos for herself, Noiret mixes perseverance with playfulness, strength with vulnerability, and humour with honesty to create a striking show that speaks personally to each audience member.

A performance grounded in the unique qualities, strengths, and limitations of the human body, Noiret’s expertise in Chinese Pole centres The Raft of The Crab in the physical and emotional journey of recovery; strength and resilience carry Noiret upward, opening up a breathtaking playing field in the sky for movement and creativity to reign.

TICKET LINK

OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk

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Resources

Samaritans - Rape Crisis Scotland - Rape Crisis UK

ArtsMinds - BAPAM

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It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with Dr Nandini Manjunath and Himadri Madan of Theiyaarts about their new show Maiden Mother Whore.

Maiden Mother Whore

Assembly @ DanceBase, DB-1

18 - 30 August (no shows 24,25)

5:30 (60 mins)

Maiden Mother Whore

A daring, beautiful dance and multimedia show that challenges assumptions about gender, society, and power - what does it mean, and how does it feel, to be a woman in today’s complex patriarchal society?

Produced by celebrated Edinburgh dance company Theiyā Arts Dance Collective, Maiden|Mother|Whore is a deeply compelling, fearless, and visually beautiful dance and multi-media performance that unravels the intricate knot of relationships that exist between women, social structures, health and social policies, and institutions.

Explored through South Asian classical-contemporary dance (genre of dance that Theiyā Arts Dance Collective has specialised in since the company’s inception in 2020), spoken word, interactive projection, visual art, movement exploration, creative text, and multi-linguistic live music from Scotland-based singer-songwriter Giulia Drummond, Maiden|Mother|Whore draws on women’s lived experiences and narratives in an interactive, thought-provoking show that boldly asks: What versions of the self become possible as we move between resistance, compliance, and refusal of the roles patriarchy has handed down to us?

TICKETS 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

Email – [email protected]

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

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It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with perfromer Lee Minora about her new show Baby Everything.

BABY EVERYTHING

Summerhall, Tech Cube 0

Dates: 6 - 31 August (not 17, 24)

Time: 10:10 (60 mins)

Baby Everything

Is it just me, or is all this fascism giving me a lump in my breast?

Acclaimed Philadelphia comedian, performer and writer Lee Minora is Baby. Returning to Edinburgh for the first time since her “must-see satire” debut, White Feminist (2018), Lee Minora presents the UK premiere of her new solo show, Baby Everything, at Summerhall this August.

Baby Everything is the morning doomscroll you actually want to wake up for, a razor-sharp, hilarious, helter-skelter interrogation of anxiety in the digital age. From the narcissistic comfort of a well-timed panic attack, to calling your mother a fascist and the relentless need to stay informed at all costs, no stone of modernity is left unturned. But audiences are not granted license to simply scroll the pain away, this show is, after all, IRL. Baby needs you to: give a professional breast exam; decide where you’d flee if your country fell apart and; if you’re lucky, hold Baby at gunpoint.

TICKETS 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

Email – [email protected]

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

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with performer Mariann Yar about her new. Show Landsfrau.

LANDSFRAU

TechCube 0 at Summerhall

Dates: 6 - 31 August 2026

Time: 14:50 (60 mins)

LANDSFRAU

Landsfrau: German, noun. 1) compatriot; 2) fellow countrywoman; 3) هموطن

Blending music, choreography and poetry, LANDSFRAU هموطن is an auto-fictional journey into an Afghanistan that may or may not exist. In this searching performance, Mariann Yar twists at the challenges and difficult privileges of a life in the diaspora. As the last planes left in the 2021 evacuation of Kabul airport, Afghanistan vanished from Ariana’s reach. The return of the Taliban and the sudden withdrawal of the western troops trigger an internal reckoning with war and memory that transports her as far as twenty years earlier, to the televised reporting of 9/11. Burdened by the many narratives of her parents' birth country, Ariana feels an innate responsibility to dismantle the Western images of Afghanistan and build her own story: fragments of family history, imagined pasts, longing and intermittent rage.

LANDSFRAU هموطن asks us to consider how we should hold the conflicting forces of identity; the political and the personal. What does it mean to grow up abroad as a child of Afghan parents? To belong to a place you can never return to? As Ariana weaves these complex threads into a rich collage of her life, biographical episodes slide into stories of nostalgia and fantasy; Afghan folk music collides with electronic beats; Attan meets contemporary dance.

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

Email – [email protected]

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

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with pervious guest and friend of the pod - writer Emery Schaffer about her new play BearGirl.

BEARGIRL

Assembly Roxy, Roxy Boxy

Dates: Wednesday 5th - Monday 31st August 2026

Time: 4:20pm (60 mins)

BearGirl

Bear suits, bereavement, and big scary feelings...oh my.

Premiering at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe is BearGirl - an empowering drama about animal costumes, grief and feminist rage, written by Emery Schaffer (We Used to be Girl Scouts, MONUMENTAL) and directed by Kate Stamoulis. Inspired by Anton Checkhov’s The Bear, Bear Girl is a new play about love and hate, desire and guilt, reclaiming yourself when it’s all been stripped away, and attempting to make peace with the beast within.

Struggling to cope with the death of her husband, a grief-stricken widow unexpectedly finds comfort whilst wearing an oddly sentimental bear suit that reminds her of her lost love. From that day, Bear Girl is born: an unfeeling, thick-skinned beast of a woman who doesn’t care that you’re staring at her, because she’s not really there. Meshing a complicated love affair with the shock of sudden loss, Schaffer’s play explores the complex web of weighty emotions that lay within every human going through the worst moment of their life- and what happens when we lose all control of how we ‘should’ behave… and start giving into our primal instincts.

TICKET LINK

emeryschaffer.com

heythankstheatrecollective.com

OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk

IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES

Equity Toolkit: Link

Stellar Quines: Link

Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership

Email – [email protected]

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

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with Katherina Radeva about her new show 40/40. Which is on in the second half of this year’s fringe.

40/40

Dancebase, Studio 3

Dates: 18 - 23 August

Time: 14:30 (50 mins)

40/40

Kat is a woman (has been for quite a while now). She is a migrant (since 1999) from the Thracian Valley in Bulgaria. In April 2022, surrounded by family and friends, she turned 40.

The critically acclaimed, international touring sensation 40/40 returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026, celebrating four years of dance, joy and celebration travelling across Europe. Part of the Made in Scotland Showcase 2026, this inspiring, insightful and moving show honours Katherina Radeva’s 40 years as a woman, a migrant and an artist.

Kat has always danced, but she has never called herself a dancer, until now. Claiming space on the dance floor, she writes stories of her past, present and future – in speech, electrical tape, and in movement. From childhood gymnastics classes and body shaming, to migrancy and moving to the UK at 16, Kat puts it all on the floor. A creative who refuses to be categorised, through choreography we see all the joys and sorrows of Radeva’s 40 years in this life affirming piece of radical movement.

40/40 is a celebration of women’s - especially women over 40’s - strength, labour, hard work, joys and sadnesses. Kat interweaves open, honest audio voice overs with great tunes - including the Eurythmics Sweet Dreams are Made of These, Nick Cave’s Rings of Saturn, and more - and great dance moves to create a truly joyful space. Join the middle-aged woman revolution by dancing, claiming and reclaiming the beautiful, glorious and messy complexities of womanhood.

TICKET LINK

Twodestinationlanguage.com

OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk

IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES

Equity Toolkit: Link

Stellar Quines: Link

Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership

Email – [email protected]

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

WE’RE BACK!!!

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 series

Elaine chats with performer Martha Knight about her show The King of All Birds. Joining Martha is her director Joy Nisbett who chats about The King of All Birds as well as Julius Ceasar Variety show which she has written and directed.

Both shows run for the whole festival at Summerhall.

The King of All Birds

Summerhall, Former Gent’s Locker Room

Dates: 6 - 31 August (not 17, 24)

Time: 13:40 (60 mins)

The King of All Birds

I’m going to do a few songs today. In about 60 minutes, we’re going to crown a new king. And then, I’m going to fly.

Award-winning Irish theatre-maker, sound designer and composer Martha Knight brings her critically acclaimed theatre show to Summerhall for its UK premiere. The King of All Birds blends sound, history and imagination to trace humanity’s ever-evolving relationship with the sky - from a time when it lay untouched, through the earliest daring attempts to reach it, to today’s relentless ascent up and up.

Inspired by the societal phenomenon of aerial photographs displayed in homes across Ireland since the 1960s, The King of All Birds is a playful, tongue-in-cheek one-woman piece of gig theatre which expands this story, tracing Ireland’s history from the great birds of Celtic folklore to our modern world of aeroplanes, satellites, and drones. Tracking this journey with the help of classic Irish folk song, Wild Mountain Thyme, performed via voice, musical instrument, and live electronics; Martha Knight tells a radically gentle story of Ireland, identity, and belonging.

TICKET LINK

Julius Caesar Variety Show

Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre

Dates: 6 - 31 August (not 17, 24)

Time: 16:45 (60 mins)

Julius Caesar Variety Show

A Black actor, a woman actor, and a straight white male actor walk into a Shakespeare audition…

Acclaimed emerging writer-director Joy Nesbitt premieres her multi-award-nominated play, JULIUS CAESAR VARIETY SHOW, at Summerhall this August. This bold new play puts on the worst audition you’ve ever seen, asking: what happens when identity, ambition, and artistic authority collide under pressure?

During the 2023 Dublin riot, a Black actor, a woman actor, and a straight white male actor audition for a part in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. The three auditionees attempt to impress a revered director set on reinventing the play in "unorthodox" styles - and as the audition unfolds, the actors' identities are called into the audition room and exploited for better performances.

What begins as an audition quickly transforms into a battleground. As the director, aided by an ever-present accompanist, pushes the actors to their limits, questions of identity, authorship, and representation come sharply into focus. Performers and audiences alike must confront how their lived experience shapes not only their interpretation of the roles, but also the meaning of the play itself.

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

Email – [email protected]

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

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series

Elaine chats with Lisa Fa’alafi & Leah Shelton about their new show Dangerous Goods.

Dangerous Goods

Assembly George Sq Gardens

Now -24th August

20:05

TICKET LINK

Dangerous Goods

Dangerous Goods is an unapologetic and hot-as-hell cabaret of provocative performances, jaw-dropping physical feats and powerful acts of rebellion. Featuring a world-class line-up of circus, aerials, drag, burlesque and power vocals (including artists from the award-winning smash-hit Hot Brown Honey), performance renegades Polytoxic bring you an unforgettable evening of high-octane entertainment that is fully loaded and flammable AF. This is cabaret for the brave new world, ready to blow minds and shift paradigms. 'A tour de force of feminist cabaret (StageWhispers.com.au). 'Raunchy and hilarious... phenomenal!' (WeekendNotes.com).

OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk

Persistent and Nasty join the CEC community to create a safe space & build a community for those who are marginalised in any way in the arts.

Link for our Zoom meeting with Creative Entrepreneurs Club

https://creativeentrepreneursclub.co.uk/

MAIL BAG – you can write and ask us industry related questions or general

questions or maybe you have a hot take you want to chare, some tea you want to spill or a topic you want discussed on the podcast.

To be included in the Mail Bag podcast email [email protected] with subject line MAIL BAG or slide into the DM’s.

IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES

Equity Toolkit: Link

Stellar Quines: Link

Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership

Email – [email protected]

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

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series

Elaine chats with Emma Ruse about the 4 shows she is producing at the festival this year.

r/Conspiracy by Ella Hällgren

4:20pm, 30 Jul - 24 Aug

Ruby @ Appleton Tower

Gilded Balloon

Jumper Bumps by Amelia Rodger

3:00pm, 30 Jul - 24 Aug -Ruby @ Appleton Tower

Gilded Balloon

Mary: A Gig Theatre Show by Rona Johnston

9:00pm, 14 Aug - 21 Aug

Other Yin @ Patterhoose Gilded Balloon

Homo(sapien) by Conor O'Dwyer

1:10pm, 30 Jul - 24 Aug The Snug @ Roxy Assembly

Details and ticket links for all shows can be found via link below or on Emma’s website.

Info and Ticket Link

Emma Ruse

Emma is a theatre producer and director based in Musselburgh, Scotland. As well as running Emma Ruse Productions, they are co-founder and Chief Executive of Framework Theatre Company, where they provide bespoke support to emerging artists across Scotland. Emma Ruse Productions aims to produce new theatre within Scotland and beyond, with a focus on accessibility, transparency and fair working conditions. There is a focus on stories that are told through a feminist or queer lens, and on work that supports underrepresented voices. Emma directs some of this work themself, and produces the work of others.

E.R.P's work should be high-quality, well-made and creatively engaging.

OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk

Persistent and Nasty join the CEC community to create a safe space & build a community for those who are marginalised in any way in the arts.

Link for our Zoom meeting with Creative Entrepreneurs Club

https://creativeentrepreneursclub.co.uk/

MAIL BAG – you can write and ask us industry related questions or general

questions or maybe you have a hot take you want to chare, some tea you want to spill or a topic you want discussed on the podcast.

To be included in the Mail Bag podcast email [email protected] with subject line MAIL BAG or slide into the DM’s.

IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES

Equity Toolkit: Link

Stellar Quines: Link

Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership

Email – [email protected]

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

It’s the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 series

Elaine chats with Truly Siskind-Weiss about her new show The Strongest Girl in The World.

The Strongest Girl in The World

Gilded Balloon Patter House – Snug

Now – 25th AUG

Time: 14:20

A Journey of Flight

Gather round the campfire for this funny and nostalgic play about love, loss and summer camp. Truly doesn't remember her dad. Not really. Instead, she's collected songs, objects and stories to build a picture of who he was. Join her as she embarks on a journey to discover her father and uncovers her childhood self along the way. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll yearn for the early 2000s. Come see this story of fear and bravery that examines how we remember those we've lost.

TICKET LINK HERE

OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk

Persistent and Nasty join the CEC community to create a safe space & build a community for those who are marginalised in any way in the arts.

Link for our Zoom meeting with Creative Entrepreneurs Club

https://creativeentrepreneursclub.co.uk/

MAIL BAG – you can write and ask us industry related questions or general

questions or maybe you have a hot take you want to chare, some tea you want to spill or a topic you want discussed on the podcast.

To be included in the Mail Bag podcast email [email protected] with subject line MAIL BAG or slide into the DM’s.

IPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES

Equity Toolkit: Link

Stellar Quines: Link

Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership

Email – [email protected]

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