Not every Edinburgh comedy set needs a theme, story or tear-jerking finale. But it helps when the material coheres; when something turns a series of unrelated routines into a show. Aussie comedian Felicity Ward has assembled such sets in the past, addressing everything from her mental health to irritable bowel syndrome in smart, swaggering standup. But this year’s show, Busting a Nut, has no binding agent, save Ward’s livewire personality. It’s just a 60-minute club set ranging around such subjects as inspirational quotes, having a big nose and recent holidays.
That absence of narrative and argument puts pressure on the jokes. And for me, they don’t quite plug the gap. To begin, our host is newly married and living with her husband’s parents. Mother-in-law is a “feeder”, she says, and a hoarder of toilet rolls. The wedding is recalled, with a pedicure set piece (big-hitting if cut from familiar comic cloth) and a routine about Ward’s quest for a “vintage” frock. There’s a nice conceit casting the wind on Fuerteventura as a predatory man and a choice one-liner about yoga.
But there are tenuous gags, too: one about fossil hunting; another about the Commonwealth Games. Some of the segues need a fair bit of acceleration to lift off. There’s a “performance art” moment about a fart noise that playfully tests one’s patience – to destruction. It is a sign of confidence that she tries that, and her confidence is justified. Ward is a high-energy, animated, endearing standup. But she operates here at a level below her steamroller best. The show is amusing, but hard to get excited about.
