Comedian Juliette Burton uses her new documentary-cum-stand-up show, Butterfly Effect, to prove that being kind can change the world.

Juliette discovered that the power of making people laugh was the one true therapy for her own mind demons. Once she is on stage and engaging with the audience all her old fears, despair and depression falls away.

But she can’t be on stage 24-hours a day, so in her latest show she explores the effects of being kind to yourself and to others.

“If you help yourself you can help others,’’ said Juliette. “Kind acts from others changed my outlook and the kind acts I have done to other people gave me the evidence. I focussed on the power of kindness to sea change my world a little bit.’’

The Butterfly Effect is both facts and comedy, ‘cheeky and uplifting’, and is stopping off in Swindon on Wednesday, October 10.

Juliette says she loves having her own show, her own voice and as ambassador for Mind and Rethink mental health charities, she can reach out to others through her comedy. “It has been transforming for me, I am happier, motivated and making people laugh is a reason to live, and I love doing it,’’she said.

The comedian took the leading role in the feature film Supermum, directed by Lisa Gifford, which premiered at the 2015 Raindance Film Festival.

“A mum is a superhero, she has to save the world and get back home to be with her daughter. I loved the idea of that. Filming was a different discipline from stand-up.

“My own mum is an angel, she was the one person who, even when I was at my lowest, being sectioned and in and out of clinics, kept faith in me and gave me strength. So super is not enough to describe my mum,’’ said Juliette.

The comedian says she has been on a long journey since her early teens. She was diagnosed with eating disorders such as anorexia at the age of eight, and she struggles against bipolar and depression. “We have to experience the dark to appreciate the light,’’ said Juliette. “The power of empathy and the strength to open up to people is one of the tools to combating mental illness that is so debilitating.’’

The comedian believes that by being open about her own struggles she can help others and she appeared on Tomorrow’s World discussing her Body Dysmorphic Disorder which is an anxiety related disorder. She has also appeared on BBC TV’s The One Show and ITV’s This Morning and is currently doing a podcast relating to mental illness.

The Butterfly Effect is the comedian’s fourth solo show, all of which have been launched at the Edinburgh Fringe. She won the Voice Magazine Pick of the Fringe Award in 2017 and the Spirit of the Fringe Award in the same year at Bedfringe.

Following her current national tour Juliette will be back in the saddle writing material for her Edinburgh Fringe 2019 show.

Dare To Be Kind is at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road, from 7.30pm on October 19. Tickets are £15.50 from 01793 524481.- Flicky Harrison