Yola Jean Lu’s one-woman monologue is not an easy fit for the comedy section of the Fringe brochure, with a lengthy set of trigger warnings issued at the top. Yet this candid American comic still finds humour in the desperately sad trauma that’s befallen her. The grim headlines are that she suffered a miscarriage while she was married, contracted herpes more than a decade ago and has been treated for pre-cervical cancer. Throw in a narrowly thwarted suicide attempt and ongoing body-image issues and you have a substantial back catalogue of misery, abetted by her often toxic Taiwanese American family and a succession of men in her life who could charitably be described as absolute bastards.

The older comic who gave her an STD is foremost among these, an unrepentant abuser who’s left a trail of destruction though Lu’s life and others. If living well is the best revenge, well, she’s doing relatively ok, taking command of narratives that all appear to indicate her genitalia is somehow cursed. The tale of her pregnancy is particularly emotive, her shifting feelings towards the unborn child a gradually unfolding tragedy that ultimately overwhelmed the marriage. But here, as elsewhere, there remain minor grounds for optimism and she stands defiant at the end.

Yola Jean Lu: Help! My Vagina Is Trying to Kill Me! theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, until 23 August, 8.05pm.