What Girls Are Made Of (Traverse Theatre)

GIRL Power is the order of the day in Edinburgh this year, and the Traverse Theatre’s contribution to the cause, What Girls Are Made Of, is a sweetly sentimental tale of rock ’n’ roll redemption.

Written and performed by Cora Bissett (right), it tells how, as a teenager in the early Nineties, she went from small town Fife to touring with heavyweights Radiohead and Blur.

Living the dream didn’t last long. She got torpedoed by a bad review in the NME, and then discovered she was being ripped off by her manager. Her record company cut her loose, and her life went into free fall.

What makes Bissett’s story engaging is her disarming openness. Youthful errors, professional humiliation, guilt at letting down her parents. We can all relate to that. ★★★★✩