REVIEW: What Girls Are Made Of, Traverse Theatre. Edinbrgh Fringe ✭✭✭✭✭

Cora Bissett, in 1992, desperate to break out of a small town in Fife, answers an ad in the local paper: Band seeks singer. Suddenly she is catapulted into the rock and roll lifestyle as the band, Darlingheart, tour supporting Radiohead and Blur. Then one bad review in the NME of their debut album, a manager who rips them off, a record company who don’t know what to do with her, and the very brief dream is suddenly over. Using her teenage diaries, Cora tells her true story, and although it’s about NOT making it, it’s a total triumph.

Part play, part gig, her honest appraisal of her life is the story of so many artists screwed over by managers and companies. The band are terrific, playing a range of roles as well as the superb, Indie music. Susan Bear, Simon Donaldson and Grant O’Rourke not only between them play hilarious cameo’s of the Britpop stars, they also play the people important to her, the scum bags and the loved ones. In particular, her strong mother, and a beautifully poignant portrayal of her Dad suffering from dementia.

And centre stage is the fantastic Cora, never self pitying, able to create a work of art about her life, empowering and tearing the place up. It’s about family, friendship, music, love, survival. In the same year her Dad died, Cora become a mother. She imagines what she would say if her daughter asks her what girls are made of. Here director Orla O’Loughlin’s excellent production soars as Bissett brings it home. The lyrics encompass everything that we have watched unfold as she answers that girls are made of gang huts, stilts and Go Karts, and that’s just the beginning of an anthem that raises the roof and brings the audience roaring to their feet. This isn’t just a play about A life, it’s a play ABOUT life, and anyone who sees it will never forget the amazing Cora Bassett and her band.