Following a sold-out, Fringe First winning run at Edinburgh Fringe 2018, where it returns this summer, Cora Bissett’s What Girls Are Made Of charts her rollercoaster journey from indie-kid hopeful to wised-up woman. In this exhilarating and exciting piece of gig theatre, directed by Orla O’Loughlin (Mouthpiece) and winner of a Scottish Culture Award 2019, Cora celebrates life’s euphoric highs and epic shitstorms accompanied by a live band, with a brand-new drummer.
Taking to the stage in this production is drummer and bassist Emma Smith, who has recently been on-kit with all-female outfit Hairband and 6-piece band Kaputt. Emma brings her own personal flair on the drums to help tell Cora’s remarkable tale.
Grunge has gone global, indie kids are inheriting the earth, and a schoolgirl from Glenrothes is catapulted to a rock star lifestyle as the singer in a hot new indie band. Touring with Radiohead, partying with Blur, she was living the dream. Until she wasn’t. Based on her meticulously detailed teenage diaries, this is the true story of Cora Bissett’s rollercoaster journey from the girl she was to the woman she wanted to be. What Girls Are Made Of asks what wisdom we should pass on to the next generation – and which glorious mistakes we should let them make.
It’s a roaring, exhilarating show… this isn’t just a rock’n’roll memoir and a story of hotels and dreams trashed, disreputable conning managers and manipulative record companies but a story of one woman discovering herself and what she really wants. …. Orla O’Loughlin’s heady but exquisitely controlled production stages the entire show as an exhilarating piece of gig. (Lyn Gardner, Independent).
With live backing band of actor/musicians Emma Smith, Simon Donaldson and Harry Ward, What Girls Are Made Of celebrates the euphoric highs (touring with Radiohead, partying with Blur) and epic lows (untrustworthy managers, £40,000 debt) of her young life as lead singer in the tipped-for-the-top band Darlingheart, poignantly interspersed with the personal losses and gains of her adult life.
What Girls Are Made Of is at Soho Theatre 9th – 28th September 2019.
