“I love getting praise,” says Felicity Ward, which won’t surprise anyone who’s seen her funny – but often highly-strung and needy – comedy in the past. She puts those previous shows into context here, telling us that, for much of her career, she’s been performing while simultaneously experiencing panic attacks. But no longer: this new set recounts how the Australian comic faced up to and tamed (for now) her anxiety and depression. Oh, and her IBS – “the sexiest of all the syndromes”. That toilet and stack of loo roll are centre stage for a reason, you know.
Sounds like a laugh a minute, right? Well, it is – far from being earnest or pious, this is a sharp, upbeat and self-mocking set, with a particularly strong first 20 minutes. It opens like a whirlwind: it feels like Ward has brought her nervous negative energy under control, and learned how to use it for good. She tells us about Beryl, the self-sabotaging imp that lives in her head; shades of the comic Terry Alderton’s demonic alter ego, here. She tells us of flirting with self-harm and her hankering for Domino’s pizza.
Mainly, she addresses her four-times-an-hour toilet habit. “Like a white guy with dreadlocks,” she says, “I couldn’t see the problem, but everyone around me was worried for my mental health.” It’s not just the subject that distinguishes this from everyday autobiographical comedy. It’s the full-pelt pace, and Ward’s confident cross-cuts between story, internal monologue, asides to the audience, and digressions into routines about ferris wheels, say (which “move at the speed of nightmares”) or adult contemporary rock. There are lapses, like the corny section on the German accent. And I could live without the audience sing-along at the end, which is flagrant padding. But for the most part, this set on mental illness is in rude comic health.
• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 31 August. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
.jpg?w=600)
