WHEN Beth Vyse was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 28, the RSC actress declared life too short for self-doubt and regrets, packed in the theatre and penned her first comedy routine.

Soon her irreverent quips and oddball shows, featuring such characters as her leopard skin-clad alter ego Olive Hands, caught the attention of critics and spectators alike, making her a fixture of the Edinburgh Festival.

And yet, while cancer marked a major turning point in her career, it’s not until she received the all-clear that the 34-year-old finally mustered up the courage to share her harrowing and rather surreal journey on stage.

“The doctor said a really weird thing to me: ‘Now you’ve got the five years all-clear your chances of getting cancer are the same as everyone else’. I thought it was a weird statement to make to someone who’s been through cancer,” she chuckles to herself.

“That’s when I felt ready to tell my story. There were lots of funny things that happened along the way but I’d kept them to myself, because I was scared it would come back.

“The day after I was diagnosed they showed me a catalogue of page after page of pictures of breast reconstruction and they said, ‘If we do you a good one, you could be in here,” she recalls pausing to let her words sink in. “It’s not something you really want to hear,” she bursts out laughing, making light of the whole episode, painting an absurd picture of herself flicking through the pages, bewildered. “That was the way I handled it most of time, I was sarcastic with it.”

But toeing the pesky line between pathos and tongue-in-cheek romp through the stark banality of chemotherapy, baffling tete-a-tete with doctors, not to mention the business of 'shopping' for breasts before her mastectomy, was far from straightforward, she concedes.

“Talking about things like this and working out a show took quite a while,” she admits. “At first I’d write a little bit down and try it out on stage but everybody would end up in tears. It’s developed now and I know how to take people to my darkest place and get them back with a joke at the end.”

In As Funny As Cancer she neatly delivers a deeply personal exploration of cancer and mortality with her trademark displays of bravura, going as far as prancing around in a Dolly Parton wig in a dream sequence, bouncy rubber breasts strapped to her chest, dolling out ping pong balls to the audience. Enough said.

“It’s not really stand-up,” she points out. “More storytelling, mixed with theatre, mixed with prop comedy. It’s really about the mundaneness of the NHS, the everydayness of it and the earth-shattering things that are happening to you personally.

“A lot of people who come to the show have been touched by cancer or a relative has been through treatment. It’s an uplifting show for everyone and a personal show for me. One woman came up to me after a show and said she’d just been diagnosed two hours ago and she wanted to come and see someone talk about cancer in a positive way.”

Beneath the lampoon, blithe tales and clownish accoutrements, As Funny As Cancer is unapologetically raw and close to the bone.

“I was starting to settle down and this turned my life on its head,” Beth says candidly. “I didn’t expect it. It’s not in my family at all. It wasn’t genetic, just one of those random things that happen.

“It’s been quite cathartic doing this and letting everyone know. Because I didn’t let many people know I had cancer, just a few friends and relatives. It’s not something I wanted to shout from the roof tops.”

Baring her fears and revisiting each night the most traumatic experience of her life has not been without its challenges. She confides a sense of dread it may return still lingers, but humour never fails to provide salutary distance.

“It’s raw and real on stage but I try to keep it separate from life; I don’t let it take over. Cancer threw me but it’s also taken my career on a different path. Before I was not really brave enough to do comedy. I didn’t trust my writing. This show has been really successful. I’m happy and enjoy myself; what else could you want?”

Beth Vyse comes to the Arts Centre on October 11. To book go to swindontheatres.co.uk.