Review by Steve Bennett at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Alex Ward is a newcomer whose inexperience – both of comedy and of life – are all-too apparent in her festival debut.

She’s decent company, but many of her anecdotes are too inconsequential to engage and aren’t given enough of a comic twist. Often they are mildly amusing in the sort of ‘a funny thing happened at work’ way that you might tell your partner at the end of the day – but ‘mildly amusing’ won’t cut it on stage, especially when the stories end in anticlimax.

Mild is pretty much a watchword in fact, with gentle stories about growing up in Queensland and getting her teeth fixed. There’s a lot of focus on detail, which makes the pictures vivid, but she’s purely descriptive rather than making revealing comic observations about the minutiae of life – and she pays very little attention to the big picture. When she says she never opened up to her mother about anything seriously personal, you can easily substitute ‘audience’ for ‘mother’.

The second half of the show picks up a little, as she talks about her sexuality and the admin of heartbreak, giving at least a glimpse into her life that adds to her naturally endearing nature. And there are signs of decent storytelling skills as strands come together neatly, which is satisfying from a narrative point of view at least.

Ward shouldn’t be discouraged, as she has warmth and charm and can both hold a room and set a mood. But it feels as if she’s rushed into a full hour too early, and struggles to find comic or emotional punches to capitalise on her quiet charisma.

Review date: 14 Apr 2017
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett