When Thanyia Moore tells you that she’s recovered and processed the miscarriage that derailed her 2022 Fringe debut, you believe her. Casually easing into her latest hour with some attentive crowd work, she relates her tale with generosity, clear-eyed recall and seemingly little narrative manipulation. Arriving at that ill-fated Festival with high hopes, considerable financial and logistical backing, and a show about her past as a dancer featuring energetic interludes, she’d only shared her pregnancy with a close circle of intimates. That secrecy and a tendency to shut out loved ones when bad things occur didn’t help when she realised that she was losing her baby before the run of shows had even started. 

Incredibly, she held herself together enough to perform, be treated in Edinburgh and London, before returning to the Fringe to finish her version of the Olympics; she leaves the wisdom of that decision open-ended. Inevitably poignant, Moore tenderly guides the crowd through her trauma, finding humour in the sad unusualness of the circumstances and the varying care of the NHS, north and south of the border. Big laughs are at a premium, the context too painful, but there’s unquestionably communal catharsis in August.

Thanyia Moore: August, Pleasance Courtyard, until 24 August, 5.40pm; main picture: Rebecca Need-Menear.