By the time we reach the thirteenth verse of the St Stephen’s Border Ballad, the foundling has had a child of her own, become a painter, escaped to the Highlands via the A9, and been battered by forces internal and external, but we have yet to find out where we stand on the issue of Scottish Independence.

Northern Stage’s Lorne Campbell has given himself, his company and the audience quite a task here. Collectively we are to produce a new border ballad, to help us understand the broader picture of the dilemma being faced by Scottish voters. Lorne says that his own lack of certainty about how to vote inspired this huge undertaking. He says that a border ballad is no place for irony – you have to wear your heart on your sleeve. The audience is ready for it – there is good energy in the room. Tables and chairs at the front, raked seats behind. There are matchboxes and tea lights on the tables and the stage floor. Aly Macrae is musical maestro, as arresting here as he was in The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. Aly also wrote the first verse of the ballad, establishing the set-up of a foundling in a Moses basket, found on the night of the dissolution of the Union.

This musical and poetic endeavour involves a guest ‘balladeer’ each night who moves the story on, like a game of wordy consequences. Supported by two or three musicians, the team of actors and writers recite the previous verses, and in between each we sing a rousing refrain from the very first verse.

Before the ballad starts, there are two personal pieces, and tonight it’s the turn of Daniel Bye and Lucy Ellinson. Daniel attempts a ballad about Middlesborough and weaves a tall tale which results in him being burnt in a sort of Wicker Man scenario by staunch ‘Berwick-on-Tweed nationalists’ by mistake. They thought he was a Geordie. He is a good writer and delivers well. ‘If you find this painful and upsetting,’ he quips knowingly, ‘just think of it as performance art.’

Lucy, hotfoot from performing in Grounded at the Traverse, gives us an exercise. The audience is invited to the stage space to sit amongst the candles and slips of paper. Lucy is quite a radical and the papers have messages from people across the country saying what national services are most important to them. Services such as healthcare, transport, education facilities that are under threat. It is great to witness a disparate group of people become a community through doing this; our voices never overlap, the tones vary, the lights are gradually blown out. It’s not a ballad, but it’s moving, and thoughtful and political.

For the Saturday night audience, the foundling’s journey ends with a lovely piece by Deborah Pearson. The foundling mother is going through a feisty stage with her now teenage daughter, whose propensity to speak ‘American’ stretches her nerves. Deborah takes language as a metaphor for nationalism. She ends with a beautiful couplet: ‘Age is its own country and border, we’re told, and the young they speak differently there.’

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the run goes. Each night is videoed and viewable online so you can keep up to date with it. And each night the audience sings a song for the next incoming audience and nominates one for them to sing. We had Eye of The Tiger, they get Jolene, poor devils.

I expected to be challenged by questions of sovereignty, of nuclear disarmament, of European isolation. I would have liked some that. Instead the evening was a varied and enjoyable mix of words and music and games. There will be many folk by the end of the week with an ear-worm of a refrain stubbornly refusing to shift:

‘The wrangling is over, the deal has been struck. Let’s see what the foundling does now.’