The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project, Northern Stage at St Stephen’s - theatre review

For the second year running, Newcastle's lively Northern Stage has taken up residence at St Stephen's to present a mini-festival of work bubbling with invention, all from artists in the north of England. Quite the jolliest part is this late-night offering, "part poetry and part party", which toys playfully — and often very obliquely — with the issue of Scottish independence.

This delightfully quirky show, curated and introduced by Northern Stage’s charismatic new artistic director Lorne Campbell, takes as its inspiration the border ballads, that narrative tradition peculiar to Northumberland and southern Scotland. The aim is ambitious: each evening a new verse will be added to a modern border ballad that starts on the night of the Dissolution of the Act of Union, when a foundling child is discovered in a Moses basket on that dividing waterway, the River Tweed. The chorus — in which we are all invited to join — is affecting in its simplicity: “Let’s see what the foundling does now”.

Before this point, however, there’s lots more enjoyment to be had, courtesy of a rotating cast of artists who supply their own mini ballads, which are quietly profound about ideas of identity, where we come from and where we belong. “This isn’t a ballad and it’s not about borders. Apart from that, I’ve met the brief”, said Middlesbrough-born writer/performer Daniel Bye, before embarking on an account of accents, growing up and going away. He followed that magnetic Scottish actress/singer Cora Bissett but each night will offer its own particular package of surprise and joy. A cult Fringe hit in the making.

Until Aug 24 (0131 558 3047, northernstage.co.uk/st-stephens)