Comedy review: Felicity Ward Reads From the Book of Moron

COMING on stage looking like a cross between Joyce Grenfell and Katharine Hepburn, all aristocratic features, pipe and tweed trews, Felicity Ward quickly won me over. Convincing an audience she's the most self-deprecating woman in the world, while addressing us with huge confidence, isn't easy, but the Australian manages it with her latest Fringe show.

I nearly wrote 'event' - that's what it feels like as Ward makes us feel like we are in her private gang, and privileged to hear the close-to-the-bone stories she's brought. While her show last year was character comedy, the only character Ward is taking the mickey out of this time is herself. She's the moron of the show's title.

It's hard to agree because in everything she says and every move she makes on a stage full of deliberately rubbish props, her brilliance shines through. But that didn't stop me relishing the stories, which cover such areas as being a rubbish turn at a Bar Mitzvah and failing to have a coping mechanism for IBS.

There is very little 'reading' from the embossed - and blank - Book, just the first few lines of the story. Then Ward wanders the stage, narrating her mini comic-dramas, interrupting herself constantly to pass on another embarrassing tale, or to engage with the audience.

This is one of the funniest shows I've seen this year. If Ward is a moron, would someone please lower my IQ?