YORK actress and storyteller Danyah Miller follows up her Edinburgh Fringe run by performing Perfectly Imperfect Women in her home city from September 14 to 16 in the York Theatre Royal Studio.

Danyah's Fringe show explores what drives us to want to live perfect lives and asks what is perfection and what's so bad about imperfection. "This universal story examines the complex relationship between mothers and daughters and what it means to accept imperfection in order to connect more deeply with your female line," she says.

Danyah's York connections stretch back to her parents meeting at the De Grey Rooms' Saturday night dances in the 1960s,when the band leader was John Barry, in her father's days at York College.

Educated at Clifton Prep School and Queen Margaret's, at Escrick Park, Danyah trained in drama, dance and English, later studying improvisation, mime and physical theatre at Lecoq in Paris. She is now a course leader at the International School of Storytelling, in East Sussex, where she regularly leads workshops.


Danyah starred in the Wizard Presents production of Michael Morpurgo's I Believe In Unicorns, premiered at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe before touring nationally and internationally for two and a half years. Her second one-woman show, Morpurgo's Why The Whales Came, opened at Watford Palace Theatre last September.

"I last performed in York in 2014 at the Little Feet Festival at York Theatre Royal, when I performed I Believe In Unicorns, which is a show that can be big or small. I played to 1,500 people at the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank as part of the Imagine Children Festival, and I've played it tiny libraries too, and I've taken the show to Hong Kong and Singapore as well as the West End for two years."

Perfectly Imperfect Women is pitched at an older age group. "It's for 14-plus, though I'd still put it in the family category because it's about mothers and daughters and the family line: five generations of my family, going back to my great grandmother, who lived in a terraced house in Leeman Road," she says.

"Her fifth daughter, Jenny, was my grandmother, who went to Poppleton Road Junior School, and later took bets over the phone when it was still illegal to do that, just after the war. She also used to tie the bows on the hand-made Black Magic boxes at Rowntree, and I remember her bringing 'seconds' home for us, but she used to put 'Seconds' mints with the chocolate so all my chocolate tasted of mints!"

Last year, Danyah's grandmother sold the house she had built for her in Grantham Drive, Holgate, with money left to her, and Danyah's father, David Lodge, was a driving force in the restoration of the Holgate Mill's windmill sails.

"I came into the world in 1964, born in Acomb Road," she says. "I can't remember ever wanting to be anything else than be on the stage. It's all I ever wanted," she says.

"I went down to London straight after university – I'd done a gap year in London and abroad and then went to Bretton Hall in West Yorkshire, where the comedian Mark Thomas was a contemporary – and my daughter Sofie is the only one in the family line who wasn't born in York. She's 16 now."

Although Danyah had always wanted to perform, initially she went into theatre administration in the 1980s, but she then decided to study at Jacques Lecoq's school in Paris. "Sofie was just under two at the time I started and it was an intense period to be studying and looking after her at the same time, but I went because I wanted to follow my dreams."

Danyah began her storytelling shows in 2003/2004. "I'd say Perfectly Imperfect Women is theatrical storytelling with a splash of stand-up, and although it's biographical, it's also universal and archetypal," she says. "What's interesting is that it's about women, because I'm a woman and it's my story, but a lot of men have said to me it's just as much their story."

You will note that this story has not mentioned Danyah's mother yet. Now is that moment. "We all have mothers, don't we! The relationship I had with my mother when I was growing up wasn't easy; it was troubled, but this show has brought an understanding, a connection, a tenderness between us. I was always on a cathartic journey with this piece, and it's enabled me to address things that I needed to do. What I've realised is that we all have more in common through the generations than what separates us."

Has Danyah's mother seen the show? "Yes, but I did warn her that it pulled no punches. My mother and daughter came on the same night and sat separately, my mother at the back because she didn't want anyone to know she was there – and yes, she did still speak to me afterwards!"

Tickets for Danyah's 7.45pm evening shows and 2pm Saturday matinee are on sale at £12 at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.