Why is Scottish theatre star Cora Bissett spending New Year's Day hanging from a crane on the Royal Mile?

Here, she explains how she ended up starring in Edinburgh's Feet First extravaganza.

9 December

WHEN I was asked to do a piece for Feet First, it was an intriguing proposition. Event organisers Chloe Dear and Paul Pinson had known me from my various guises as actor/singer right back to my avant-folk days with my band Swelling Meg – shaven-headed, banging a beer-keg with a broom pole throughout renditions of achingly powerful songs that used whales and barnacles as metaphors for the relationships I was experiencing at the time.

Somehow, based on this, they asked me quite jauntily if I would like to create some songs, sing them on top of the Mercat Cross to 10,000 people, then fly from a 150ft crane. Who would refuse?

So, I have been beavering away writing a 20-minute musical set. I needed some sort of narrative to hang the songs upon. My only remit was to make it appropriate to the New Year, something about stepping into a new phase optimistically. So I considered my own New Years. Most of my Hogmanays have been spent desperately trying to track down friends in a crowd, not getting into a bar, waiting in a taxi queue, wailing to the moon over a lost love, or keeling over after starting to drink too early in that strangely quaint way that we do of trying so hard to have the most utterly significant and superlative night of our year. It doesn't work like that. According to some law known only to the forces of the universe, the best nights always happen just when you hadn't planned them, with a random assortment of friends/barely friends/oddball hangers-on in a nondescript boozer in nondescript street. So, I decide, I will write a song about a woman waking up after the Bells, all having not gone according to plan – with phone, purse, keys, dignity and partner all a distant memory of a now-past year. Hmmm, I need to work on the optimistic bit.

12 December

I have been holed up in a rehearsal room at the Arches in Glasgow with sandwiches, a flask of tea, my guitar, my cello and one of those handy wee chord books. This is because I really need to force myself to learn new chords.

I have a pathological necessity to include E minor in everything I do. I'm sure I cry, argue even, in E minor. It just works. I'm sure I could find a Yahoo group of E minor-oholics on the internet if I tried. The first song is forming. It begins: "I woke up with my cheek stuck to the floor." I'm getting places.

13 December

Over the weeks since I was asked to do this, I have been plotting this performance with various cohorts. The wonderful designer/dressmaker Anna Cocciadiferro and I have been in discussion about how to create a dress of magnificent proportions, which will fall down over the Mercat Cross. We wanted a big bold visual image to convey the "baggage" of the year past, which could then be shed, and underneath there would be a different "clear canvas" of a dress.

A few weeks later, a huge sports bag arrives with Anna's incredible creation, which spills down my hallway like a fairytale carpet. I can't actually try it on because I would need to be 30ft tall. In a weird twist of planning, all the Scottish aerialists are rehearsing down in Liverpool since Wendy the choreographer has her purpose-built studio there.

Anna needs to know if the dress "works" ASAP as she has another ten to make for the aerialists, so I travel to Liverpool, basically to hang from the ceiling to try out this monumental unfurling frock.

It's great to meet the team there, who are creating the finale of the entire event. I'll be singing at the start of their piece and so it's good to have some contact before we all meet in a freezing crane yard for a rehearsal nearer the time.

14 December

I was at a party the other night, telling an acquaintance about my flying exploits, and they had the slightly odd pleasure of telling me about a fatality at some Glasgow garden festival years ago, of Coco the Clown. A bungee rope hanging from a crane didn't quite do the job it was meant to. Nor did Coco. Strange choice of anecdote. Said friend found it hilarious. Hmm.

15 December

The songs have been evolving to a point where I had to get into the studio and get them down. To fill out the songs, I call upon my trusty musician buddies Guy Nicholson (of the band Moishe's Bagel) and Galo Ceron. I'm fascinated by the way different artists try to communicate musical ideas to each other.

None of us talks in actual classical terminology – where would be the fun in that? So you have to find a way of talking in feelings and pictures, something like: "The bit where I'm going wobbly, and it's like I'm standing on an iceberg, can you get a drum that sounds a bit blue, gradually building into a kinda oceany big bassy sound, until Galo comes in with the starry bit, and rotates that like he's spinning for four bars or maybe five … and a half?" To which Guy replies: "Aye, nae bother like, aye." Then does … something beautiful.

16 December

Ok, it's rehearsal week; I now have a space to hang from in the bohemia-land of the Out of The Blue Drill Hall in Leith. I have the wonderful aerialist Jen Patterson to – quite literally – show me the ropes, and then hang me up in them. Jen looks great in a harness, all lithe and muscular and dancerley. I look like I've had strange body parts squeezed through a marzipan tube thingy. I have musicians on hand to change and adapt the songs as we work out the movement in this huge dress.

I have the dress, and I have the priceless time of the wonderful choreographer Chris Devaney. Later in the week, my friend and long-time collaborator Ben Harrison will come and tell me what bits are rubbish, and where to act better, for which I will be profoundly grateful. And I have the songs, two of which are evolving into works of great optimism.

At the end of the week, Chloe Dear arrives. A powerhouse of Amazonian drive and conquer-all-hurdles mentality, Chloe goes just slightly gooey-eyed and soft when she sees the result. I'm hoping that bodes well for the big event.

&149 Cora Bissett will perform her show, Deep Breath, twice during Feet First, at 7:30pm and 8:45pm tonight.

CORA BISSETT is just one of 120 performers participating in Feet First, the outdoor theatre spectacular taking place on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh today between 7pm and 9:30pm.


In all there are 13 performances and installations, between the Tron and St Giles Cathedral, and using everything from the ramparts of the City Chambers to the City Council Revenue Offices. Other performers include Al Seed, Mischief La Bas, Graham Tydeman and Orkestra Del Sol, inset,; the performances will combine music, theatre, song, lighting, sound, visual art and aerial choreography.

Feet First is free but, since around 10,000 people are expected to attend, you're advised to turn up early (and, if you have children with you, not to bring pushchairs). You can find full details of all the performances on the web at www.edinburghs hogmanay.org/feetfirst, where you can also download a map and timetable showing when and where all the performances will be.

If bad weather forces the event to be cancelled, it will be staged at the same time tomorrow instead.