DOES anyone think they are perfect, asks York storyteller Danyah Miller, at the outset of Thursday's insightful hour-long Fringe show. If yes, stand up. No-one does. Does anyone want to be perfect? Only Danyah signals yes.

Has anyone felt criticised by their mother? Fifty-fifty is the response. Too fat or too thin? Nearly everyone is on their feet. Have you ever felt you're not good enough? Pretty much a full house.

Within those first few moments, Danyah has engaged with her audience – predominantly female, but men won't feel excluded – before going on to make lists from our responses to four questions as she ponders what makes us want to live perfect lives, what is perfection and what's so bad about imperfection?

"Perfect" is derived from the Italian word "perfecto", which translates as finished, as in complete, but surely a perfectionist could never feel anything is complete? "Maybe perfection is about control," surmises Danyah, who laments how such control would stunt or stop creativity.

She goes on to tell a fairytale, with the nimble aid of Russian dolls, a box of props, a high-backed chair and three sets of steps of descending size, before revealing how the story relates to her own York family: five generations of mother-and-daughter relationships full of complexities, not least between her and her mother...who turned out to be in Thursday's audience! "It's a pleasure to thank my mum," she says, in recognition of how they are all "perfectly imperfect women".

"Imperfection" means one word, Danyah decides. "Freedom". You are, of course, free to disagree.