Gig review by Steve Bennett

Nervously energetic Felicity Ward takes a little time to get warmed up in her Latitude set; with a lot of exhortations for the audience to laugh, not just smile, and to join in with applause, not leave a sole clapper hanging. It seems a bit needy, when she hasn’t even got into her set yet.

After a few reasonable observations – and an uncanny recreation of a three-year-old having a tantrum that exploits her over-the-top physicality, she starts in earnest with a routine based on football chants, possibly just the thing for a large festival crowd. The reaction, however, is a little more mixed than might be expected, perhaps because plenty have already heard the likes of ‘get your shit stars off our flag’ in the stadium. Or perhaps mocking England for being grey, cold and miserable is never really going to fly in 30 degrees of gorgeous Suffolk sunshine.

Self-deprecation is her strongest suit, gurning away to show how she can pull off a great ugly face – projected larger than life on the big-screens either side of the stage. But woe betide anyone else who wants to have a pop at her, as she proves by repeating the brutal online insults she received from a reverend, no less, with her perfect putdown deservedly earning her first applause break, and opening the door for her strongest material, laced with attitude.

She sneaks some pretty smart psychology into the latter part of the routine, with discussions of how it’s easier being angry than sad proving especially enlightening. The intelligence is snuck in thought he Trojan Horse of strong observational comedy, pulled off with a deft lightness of touch that ensures the audience are kept laughing as they recognise the traits she skilfully describes.

Similarly, routines about her skinniness turn body-image jokes on their head and back around again, getting the audience to chuckle at fat jokes – and immediately feel guilty about it.

She enters the home straight with a witty look about wonderfully descriptive foreign words we don’t have equivalents for in English; while closing with a wry imagining of phone sex for middle-class people that makes the most of her passionate hard-sell performance, and ensures her set ends on a triumph, rendering the earlier semi-apologetic pleas redundant.

Review date: 18 Jul 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett