It’s what primetime TV movies are made of. Aged just 18, writer and performer Jillian Lauren packed her bags and fled New York for the opulent world of Brunei. Summoned by playboy Prince Jefri she would live as part of his harem for almost two years. Addictions would follow, then recovery, before her best-selling memoir, the poignant page-turner Some Girls: My Life in a Harem. Almost two decades on, her Fringe debut, Mother Tongue, paves the way for the latest chapter in her life, her struggle to conceive and her decision to adopt her son from Ethopia with her husband, Weezer bassist Scott Shriner.

‘I’ve lived a life where out-of-the-ordinary things happen,’ smiles Lauren, the sense of understatement seldom lost on her. ‘I take my experiences and I try to pick out universal truths that people can relate to.

‘This feels different to the stories I’ve told before, it’s more relevant. This is who I am and this is where I am now: there are issues about motherhood there, but the story I have to tell goes beyond that.’

Summerhall, 0845 874 3001, 5 –15 Aug, 4pm, £9 (£7). Preview 4 Aug, £9 (£7).