Image via MICF
Felicity Ward is a seasoned comic, and it shows. She has just returned to Melbourne after walking the path to London that many a comedian has trod and her material is reflective of that. There is some stuff warmly mocking Australians that you can imagine going over great with an English audience, and it’s lucky Australians love to laugh at themselves because the audience seems to love it too. She mocks us for our racism and celebrates us for our watermelon hats, and we eat it up with a spoon.
The Iceberg is based around the concept that what we show to the world is only a portion of who we are and Ward uses this as a platform to explore blokes, cricket, masculinity and creativity, woes in online dating and social media. She also gives us some excellent advice on how to diffuse an argument.
Ward also gets political. If Tony Abbott was attending the Comedy Festival this year he’d probably change 18C to include a clause to prevent comics from mocking him, because Ward is yet another comic to use him to provoke laughter (at last count, at least 50% have taken Abbott to task), and it works.
The show is broken up by musical forays into Stevie Nicks, but other than that The Iceberg is pretty much your standard stand-up fare. It’s a consistently funny show, made up of equal parts silly and ranty. It’s less raw than her award winning show The Hedgehog but it is nonetheless a solid, accessible piece of comedy and one of the better acts you will find at the festival.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Iceberg
Tuesday – Sunday ACMI, Federation Sq
Mondays Melbourne Town Hall, Swanston St
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
www.comedyfestival.com.au
27 March – 20 April
