The Fringe show that emerged from child-minding and will celebrate a 'queen of country'

More than five years later, the pair are preparing to launch one of the most anticipated new Scottish productions at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe - inspired by the growing bond Boyd has felt with the late American country music star June Carter Cash.

When the River City star takes to the stage of Summerhall she will not only pay tribute to the Grammy winner’s life and legacy, but will also lay bare her own story and a journey of discovery that has taken her from her native Cumbernauld to the Appalachian Mountains and country music mecca Nashville.

June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me is the flagship new production for the National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron, the Edinburgh theatre company best known for creating Fringe shows for unusual locations like a haunted underground street, a department store and a children’s playground.

Originally envisaged as a small-scale lunchtime theatre piece, the show will unfold on a set inspired by Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Cafe, where Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks and Kathy Mattea all performed as unknowns.

The one-woman “play with songs” will draw on Boyd's upbringing as the daughter of a country singer, and how she has juggled motherhood with both an acting career and playing June in a Johnny Cash tribute band.

Bissett recalls: “This show goes back a long way. Charlene and I started talking about it before lockdown, when she had a wee side hustle as a child-minder.

"We had never worked together before, but knew each other a wee bit socially, and had got to know each other more as mums juggling life and working in the arts.

“She had reached the point which I reached many years ago, when I realised that I couldn’t just be a jobbing actor and wait for other people to give me gigs. Charlene had very much reached that place.

"When she mentioned she'd been playing June in a band for more than 10 years and was really intrigued by her, it felt like a no-brainer. June was from country music royalty and was a massive star in her own right long before she met Johnny Cash. No-one had really told her story on stage before. Charlene has really driven the show all the way since then."

Although Boyd has featured in a number of previous NTS and Grid Iron productions, she had no previous experience of writing when she asked Creative Scotland to help develop her idea, after the plug was pulled on River City filming due to the first Covid lockdown.

Boyd said: “I didn’t have much in my flat at the time. I hadn’t moved in too long before then after my ex and I split up.

"The only book I actually had was June’s autobiography From The Heart, which I had bought in a charity shop. I had never actually read it, but when I opened it up it was actually a signed copy. I remember looking at it going: ‘Is that a wee sign?’”