Written by: Deborah Frances-White
Published: Saturday 2nd August 2014

On 23rd October 2012 I stumbled across some information about my birth mother on a website called ancestry.com. I was adopted as a newborn baby and had never even seen a picture of anyone biologically related to me, so it was kind of a big deal. I talked about it on stage the next night. I couldn't help myself. If you've just hired a private detective (which I had) nothing funnier has happened to you that week.

I found the first picture of my birth mother through Google (having become quite an online Nancy Drew), sweating all night over Facebook and Pinterest - my main sources for finding pieces of this crazy biological puzzle. I was actually on the way to a gig called All Day Edinburgh - a show where Michael Legge had rallied Festival comedians to reprise their shows.

I couldn't even remember the name of my old show. I'd just found a picture of my birth mother on the INTERNET. Or at least I thought I had. I showed the audience the picture by passing my phone around, polling them on whether they thought she looked like me. It wasn't a stunt. I needed a second, third and fiftieth opinion. I couldn't really see any similarities, which worried me. I know not everyone looks like their mother, but I think if you're adopted you should.

Three weeks later I had to do a show at The London Storytelling Festival and I thought "I'm living a story. I have to talk about this." When I advertised the show, I hadn't contacted my birth mother and wasn't sure I was going to. By the time I delivered the show, I had. When I spoke to her for the first time and told her I was a comedian, she said, "Maybe you can talk about me in your comedy." I thought, "You've got no idea" - and had to 'fess up that I was already doing it.

The show grew as I lived it. People came back to hear the latest developments like it was some kind of factual, real-time detective story. The last show before I went to meet my biological family and the first show after I had were particularly extraordinary. My audience sweated through it with me and became a strange sort of support network and in a way, my extended family. I have to say if I sat down now to write the show in retrospect I'd never dare write anything so honest. I'd sugar coat and misremember.

If you are living through a great, life-changing episode, I'd recommend you do a show about it as it unfolds. Or at least write a blog. It's a catharsis. It helps you see the funny side of it and embrace the pathos. It forces you to live more bravely. It lets you jump rather than creep when you make decisions. Finding my biological family is the most exhilarating thing I've ever done. I can't believe I nearly missed it. I'm really glad I shared it.

Coming to the Edinburgh Festival with it is a way of bringing it home to this weird, dysfunctional, imaginative, brave and glorious family we call the Fringe.

Half A Can Of Worms is at Pleasance Dome every day (except 12th) at 3:45pm. Listing

Plus Deborah's upcoming BBC Radio 4 comedy series is Deborah Frances-White Rolls The Dice, where Deborah tells four gripping stories about facing life and rolling the dice.