Beth Paterson opens the show, sitting at a table, surrounded by archive boxes. There are dozens of books piled up on and around the table – the spines suggest history, culture, philosophy – and Barry Humphries.

Paterson tells us of her Saturday morning visits to see her Nana, bribed with a hot chocolate, and aged 14, watching the clock so she’d know when it was time to leave. She didn’t want to be there – her Nana, Niusia, might have been a holocaust survivor, a concentration camp hero, but to teenager Beth, she was a bitch.

 Paterson’s childhood memories are elevated by recordings of her mum, Suzie, who tells her own stories of her mother: of parties with Olympians, an embarrassed customer of Niusia’s ‘Foot-is-cray’/Footscray dress shop (not Barry Humphries, but he’s connected), and her forthright negotiations with the landlord. Niusia was born in Poland in the 1920s, coming to Australia with her daughters after surviving the war, and almost always changing the subject whenever anyone asked her about it.

But that isn’t Paterson’s style, nor is it her mum’s, and we get to know some of the stories from before her Nana came here. Director Yates expertly guides Paterson around the stage, violently emptying boxes of yet more books, then with immense tenderness as she scans the titles, or as she kneels at Nana’s now-empty chair.

Paterson is brilliant: she is open, honest, funny, utterly engaging in all the good and bad stories, and disarmingly emotional as her importance of family grows with each reveal. And she sings beautifully too. This is a vital story for all of us.