Recorded live at Push the Boat Out Festival 2025, this episode welcomes The Shore Poets - an informal but enduring Edinburgh poetry collection that has been creating a platform for poets, musicians and audiences since 1991.
Hosted by poet Christine De Luca, this special festival takeover features the brilliant eco-poetry of Karen Soli and Tim Cresswell, with live music from The Self-Righteous Brothers and in true Shore Poets tradition, the legendary lemon cake raffle.
Settle in and enjoy this celebration of poetry, music and community recorded live at Push the Boat Out Festival 2025.
Presented in partnership with The Shore Poets.
23 Jul 2026
Top Doll - Karen McCarthy Wolf and Karensa
Recorded during Push the Boat Out Festival 2025, this scratch performance took Karen McCarthy Woolf’s novel-in-verse Top Doll as its starting point. Described as ‘weird, wild’ and ‘unstoppably inventive’, Top Doll follows the story of a reclusive millionaire heiress, travelling from modern-day Park Avenue to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA – all told from the perspective of her vast collection of dolls.
The performance marked the debut of a brand new collaboration between Karen and multi-instrumentalist and performer Kerensa, whose work moves fluidly between genres, including opera-inspired pop. Created as a scratch performance, it offered audiences at Push the Boat Out Festival 2025 an early glimpse of this exciting new creative partnership.
21 May 2026
In Conversation with Len Pennie
In this episode, recorded live at Push the Boat Out in November 2025, Len Pennie joins Festival Director Emma Collins to discuss her acclaimed collection poyums annaw, exploring themes of patriarchy, gender-based violence and social injustice through poetry and humour. Featuring readings from the collection and reflections on the power of Scots language, this episode offers a fierce, funny and deeply personal conversation.
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