Edinburgh Festival Fringe Series 2024 - Ep 222: River Time

Persistent and Nasty

Today Elaine chats to poet and Storyteller Laura Thurlow about her new show River Time. We talk about the inspiration for the show, how women aren’t allowed to grow old and still be beautiful as well as touching on discovering something about yourself that changes everything. River Time- Greenside@Riddles Court - Picles Studio Dates: 9th - 24th August @ 1.45 pm Tickets available here: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/river-time River Time River Time! pulls its title from one of the show’s opening anecdotes. As a student in Edinburgh with unmanaged ADHD, Laura would often go for a night out on the Cowgate, perceive someone as looking at her wrong, become paranoid that her friends secretly despised her, and have a meltdown. To regulate these intense emotions, she would take moonlit walks at 4am along the water of Leith. To this day, if she texts a friend River Time, they know that she means her brain is on fire. A little understood aspect of ADHD is the resulting impact of the Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria that sits alongside it. These mood swings, this intense fear of rejection, are felt in the body as intense emotional pain. Laura’s fear of rejection takes her to the river, calls her to the sea, begs her to submit to the absolution of dark waters. Better to be a beautiful corpse than a failed woman. Laura’s brain is ruining her life and plotting her death. This is a one-woman treatise on deciding not to drown. River Time! discusses Hamlet’s Ophelia and the life and loss of Virginia Woolf. Laura tells anecdotes of rejection and desperation – feeling adrift in one’s own mind. She speaks on grief, and guilt through describing the loss of a friend who did not survive their messy student days. The show is a dark storytelling hour from a gifted comedic voice. It is nuanced and entertaining while inherently and enduringly relatable. Come along and take some River Time! Laura Thurlow Laura Cathryn Thurlow is a writer and performer based in Scotland, originally from Canada with experience performing across Europe. Her previous show, ‘A Preoccupation with Romantic Love’ received critical and audience praise in Edinburgh and Camden in 2023 and was nominated for an Emerging Artist Award with The Neurodiverse Review. Laura’s recent credits include being a finalist at the European Slam Final held by Commonword (Manchester), and at the Glasgow Women’s Library’s ‘Calm Slam’, and Scottish National qualifying slams at Candlelight Open Mic & The Poetry Experiment. She has recently been a featured performer with both The Loud Poets and Spoken Word Paris. She is currently completing a Master of Literature at the University of Glasgow. HIPA GUIDES: HIPA GUIDES OUR WEBSITE - www.persistentandnasty.co.uk Persistent Pal & Nasty Hero - Pals and Hero Membership Email – [e-mail] 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