Episode 37 - Karen Bartke

After a little bit of podcast hiatus we welcome back our super busy co-founder Louise Oliver. This week Louise sits down with the hilarious and very lovely Karen Bartke.

Karen Bartke is a Scottish actor from Glasgow. Appearing on stage from an early age, Karen first found her feet as a member of Glasgow Schools Youth Theatre, before studying for a degree in archaeology. The lure of the stage was strong, however, and in recent years Karen has converted her long-held passion for performing into a successful stage and screen career.

Karen is probably best known as Desk Sgt Karen Ann Miller (Officer Karen) in BBC One mockumentary Scot Squad for the Comedy Unit. She was recently seen in Planet Hogmanay on BBC Scotland, contributing alongside Darren Connell, Billy Kirkwood, Alex Norton, Sanjeev Kohli. She has also appeared in Fakers for Aficionado Films; in a series of comedy sponsorship idents for the ITV talent search show Superstar and in Episode 1 of The Kronicles of Kirk, a series of Comedy Blaps for Channel 4 directed by Noddy Davidson, produced by the Comedy Unit and starring James Kirk.

Karen’s stage credits have been wide and varied in recent years. In 2014, she originated the role of Suzy in Tamasha Theatre Company’s My Name Is…., written by Sudha Bhuchar and directed by Philip Osment. Karen was deeply honoured to be nominated for an Offie award for Best Female Performance for the original production at the Arcola Theatre in London and returned to the role for the subsequent UK tours, receiving a further nomination for an ACTA Award for Best Female Performance: Stage in the 2015 tour of My Name Is….

You can find out more about Karen at www.karenbartke.com
Follow Karen on Twitter @kazbaa

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Persistent and Nasty is produced in association with Edinburgh based live-arts production house Civil Disobedience. Civil Disobedience is committed to creating and supporting queer work and theatre and art that addresses issues of inequality and injustice. You can find out more about the Persistent and Nasty project and all the work that Civil Disobedience do by visiting wearecivildisobedience.com. You can also find us on all the usual social media platforms.

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