Wednesday evening saw Felicity Ward take to the Komedia’s studio room – The Verse’s Louise Conway headed down to review the show…
Very early on Felicity made it clear this would be an intimate show, filled with plenty of self-mocking and explicit sharing. Felicity takes the mic to introduce herself, runs onto the stage and then goes on to welcome her warm up act, who was of course Felicity herself.
The first half of the show was a mixture of improvisation and interaction, with some old and new material and a blow-horn app thrown in for good measure. A first act that engaged with the audience and relaxed them into the idea of a comedy show mixed with some mental health truths. Although not obvious from the show’s title, 50% More Likely to Die is a much lighter shows than some of Felicity’s past work.
After a quick costume change – “If it’s good enough for Beyoncé.” – the second act of well-practised show commenced – essentially a story of when Felicity left her bag on a bus. However, it is well-crafted enough to be so much more than this, which of course to Felicity, with her self-proclaimed control issues, it was. But as a result it is now an extremely funny stand up show, including hilariously accurate observations of Londoners that Felicity makes as an Australian, and some amazing family anecdotes. Although I’m still not sure how a chicken rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody fitted in, impressive none-the-less.
This was a show that had the audience utterly entertained. Felicity’s stage presence and energetic charisma was exceptional. Definitely someone to try and see wherever you can, again and again.
