Felicity Ward: 50% More Likely to Die

Honk! Felicity Ward is rocking Edinburgh again, this time equipped with a handy iPhone air-horn app that really puts a rocket under the punters at regular intervals. Indeed, she’s an enthusiastic advocate for throwing a bit of air horn into any average day. If you catch some painfully emotive contemporary theatre here that suddenly perks up via a mighty blast of air horn, you know what happened.

The energetic Aussie—still outwardly full of beans, despite now residing in chilly, gloomy London—won a lot of new Fringe friends with last year’s unpromisingly-themed show, What if There is No Toilet, the title a reference to her IBS.

Testing their mettle, this one sounds pretty grim too, but that death bit only crops up towards the end, so worry not. Although worriers are definitely welcome, as the show is again largely about anxiety, and one particular occasion in which she uncovered a method to overcome it and immediately suffered a minor disaster involving, aptly enough, baggage. Anxiety is pretty useful, in moderation: that’s one underlying message.

So, yes, 50% More Likely to Die is basically just one long, not spectacularly consequential story, but peppered with a mesmerising array of asides, audience wrangling, physical gags, fascinating family revelations, callbacks, and the occasional horn. It’s a bit like one of Ronnie Corbett’s old monologues, while also being absolutely nothing like one of Ronnie Corbett’s old monologues. Marvellous. 

If you haven’t seen one of Ward’s long-form shows, you’re missing out on one of the finest standups dashing across comedy stages today.