Rose Matafeo once described the Edinburgh Festival as ‘a mind palace of slightly traumatic memories’, having performed to only one person at an early Fringe show. It’s not all nightmarish flashbacks though; in 2018, the New Zealand-born comedian won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for her stand-up hour Horndog.

‘I was not prepared,’ she cringes from underneath a high ponytail of corkscrew curls, smiling through her swig of Berocca. She was out the previous night at London’s Moth Club watching American sketch group Simple Town and we’re Zooming before she’s even had time to get her weighing scales out to make a proper coffee. ‘I’ve practised winning Oscars since I was a kid but in no way did I believe that would happen. Worst acceptance speech of all time. I forgot to mention any producers. Steve Coogan handed me the award. I was very overwhelmed.’

Horndog, her ebullient hour about straight women’s struggles, sacking her therapist, and obsessing over exes was turned into an HBO TV special just at the point where Matafeo announced she’d be taking ‘a break from hour-long comedy’. She’s certainly not been idle since: in fact, it took three months for me to pin her down for a chat. She’s been busy directing (sitcom Golden Boy), acting (comedy film Baby Done, executive produced by Taika Waititi) and presenting (on game shows Pointless and upcoming Junior Taskmaster). Perhaps most notably, she created the screwball millennial TV show Starstruck, where she starred over three series as Hackney housemate Jessie, the on/off girlfriend to a movie star.

She now returns to the Fringe, where she could throw a rock and probably hit a colleague from the talented Starstruck team. Her co-writers Alice Snedden and Nic Sampson, her co-star and former flatmate Emma Sidi, plus Al Roberts (aka Ian) are all performing and she plans to arrive early to catch shows. ‘I should make a Starstruck bingo card! It used to be shameful how few shows I saw because I was so in my head about my own one. I’ve got a lot better at that. Now I see it as a strange opportunity to squander, being at the most incredible arts and comedy festival in the world.’

Matafeo describes her new show On And On And On as ‘a mishmash of joke ideas and heartfelt, embarrassing things that I chucked into the Notes app on my phone and printed out.’ Unlike previous hours, she set herself the creative challenge of using no screens, music or tech and focusing on simple stand-up. ‘I don’t keep a diary but this is the closest version I have to one. I’ve written more than ten hour-long shows now; it’s funny to look back on what you want at that point in your life. You’ve got these really interesting timestamps of yourself and your personality. To look back through them can be quite confronting but quite sweet sometimes.’

As a self-confessed overthinker, is she feeling less nervous than previous years? ‘No, no, still an absolute mess,’ she deadpans, before correcting herself, laughing and eye-rolling through a runaway, wise, witty stream of consciousness. ‘Oh god, I can’t believe I just called myself a mess. Unfortunately, I’m stuck in the hellscape of my own personality. I think nerves don’t go away so long as you’re striving to make it good. It’s always the hours between coming off stage and going to sleep; they are the only hours of peace I have to not think about doing the show. I went through a big phase of listening to Buddhist podcasts over the past few years. But my approach to inner peace is completely antithetical to the process. I’m like [claps hands together] “OK! I need a checklist, let’s get this done!’”

She explains how she compartmentalises her personality to allow for work phases where she is ‘very ordered, structured, focused and on it’, but also ‘ignoring aspects of your personal life or not cooking yourself dinner for six weeks and eating noodles’. The very productive last few years have included stand-up appearances on US TV shows including Conan, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and The Kelly Clarkson Show and starring as the voice of Loto in Disney’s Moana 2, out later this year. ‘Yeah that was random! And crazy. I’m playing a teenager. I’ve got quite a low voice but they didn’t ask me to change it, which surprised me. Loto is me, with ramped-up neuroses and enthusiasm. They didn’t ask me to ramp up my New Zealand accent either which is perhaps progress for New Zealand representation.’

As a half Samoan, quarter Croatian, quarter Scottish artist (her family emigrated from Lesmahagow to be farmers in New Zealand), Matafeo has moved a lot between Oceania, England, Scotland and America for work, which has clearly added to her international appeal. ‘I’ve lived in London for eight years now, slightly by accident but definitely by choice too. I’m not continually applying for a visa in my sleep, am I? Maybe the secret ideal back-up plan would be to have New Zealand citizenship. But I have absolutely no game plan.’

Now aged 32, On And On And On touches on those ‘freak-out, massive crossroads’ moments where you can pause and figure out what you’ve been conditioned to want versus what you actually want. ‘It’s a little bit what the last series of Starstruck talked about. Annoyingly, I’m experiencing it. A lot of people are having babies and I’m spending far too much time on Instagram reading about amazing women throughout history who never had babies. I have no interest in having children. I like saying that. It’s empowering. I’m fully into keeping moving forward, growing up, weighing out my coffee, learning how to paint an undercoat in my house. It’s scary and it’s exciting.’

Rose Matafeo: On And On And On, Pleasance Courtyard, 9–25 August, 5.30pm; main picture: Rebecca Thomas.