[2015090] Felicity Ward – The Iceberg
Felicity Ward @ Garden of Unearthly Delights – Studio 7
7:15pm, Sat 28 Feb 2015
I’d seen Felicity Ward perform solo shows at the Fringe three times now, and have loved (and appreciated) the work she’s been doing in mental health awareness over the past few years. Given the fortuitous overlap between their visits to Adelaide, I thought she’d be totally appropriate for my Significant Other’s introduction to big-ticket Fringe standup comedy.
But I’d forgotten how different Ward’s shows can be.
Studio 7 was packed to the rafters, and Ward was greeted with raucous applause and hooting; Ward quickly explains that The Iceberg is so named because she’d been mulling over ideas of perception, and the analogy of the iceberg being mostly underwater seemed too good to miss. And so she delves into meaty topics like misogyny, the leering at and putting down of women, racism, and politics with her usual cutting language.
Since Ward had moved to London, she surmised, she’d been afforded the opportunity to look at life in England and – more importantly – Australian culture a little more objectively, and she draws a lot of laughs from pointed observations (our cricket-watching is subject to some fun barbs). But Ward weaves a lot of compassion into the show: her mental health advocacy continues here, and her encouragement to get the audience to think about the rest of the iceberg – not just the bit that we can see and complain about – gives a lot of depth to the content.
Despite (or maybe because of) persistent niggles with the sound desk, The Iceberg proved to be an incredibly well-constructed piece of standup. Not only was the content substantive, positive, and bloody funny, but Ward’s delivery is polished to a tee, and the ending has not one, but two big reveals… but let’s not veer into spoiler territory. Needless to say, that’s the best closing five minutes to a comedy show I’ve seen in years.
(90) Felicity Ward – The Iceberg: Brilliantly constructed standup. Wonderfully set up denouement. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 28, 2015