Today we chat with the very upfront and feisty storyteller, Felicity Ward who Reads from the Book of Moron at this year’s 2010 Edinburgh Fringe. Nominated “Most Outstanding Newcomer” at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival…. she’s here at the Gilded Balloon from the 4th to the 30th of August @ 6.45 pm each evening eloquently espousing gripes and gremlins for your delight.
1. What inspired you to become a comedian?
After 15 years of failed acting auditions I thought I needed some more immediate rejection; with comedy you find out straight away whether you’re what an audience are looking for.
2. What’s your show about and where are you taking your show after the Edinburgh Fringe?
My show is a storytelling show about me being a moron interspersed with cat hatred, sweat moustaches and peri peri chilli charts. Hopefully after the Edinburgh Fringe, I’m putting it to bed…it’s been on the road for nearly a year now.
3. What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of the fact that I have a shower before nearly every gig.
4. If you had a chance to work with anyone of your choosing, who would it be?
I would love to be the special guest on an episode of The Muppets. Then we’d do a musical number. Then I could dance where my entire body would jerk from side to side but my arms, outstretched, would remain unmoved.
5. What kind of questions do you most like to be asked about your work and why?
I suppose I like to be asked about favourite moments on stage because audiences are so great and diverse there’s always a new opportunity for them to be wonderful or knuckleheads.
6. Do the reviewers of Fringe shows do a good job?
I reckon they probably do as good a job as I do; sometimes they’re right on the money, and at other times they miss the mark.
7. What do you feel about the current state of Arts funding available?
Well I’ve moved to a state in Australia called Victoria. Part of becoming a resident there, is wearing a scarf. If you want to be a citizen, you have to have an Arts Grant approved.
8. Which three famous people would you invite to dinner and why [dead celebrities included]? And what tasty treat would you prepare?
Huey, Duey and Louis; I would prepare Peking Duck!
9. What do you do to relax?
I play Jose Gonzales’ version of Kylie Minogue’s Hand on your Heart on my guitar. It’s one of about four cover songs that I know. So when I just ‘whip it out’ in front of people they think I’m really good at finger picking. I’m not. I’m limited, but well practiced in those confines.
10. What would be your dream come true?
Me; walking up the steps of my old house as a seven year old. A man with a screwdriver head looks at me, then places his head against a hand-built stone wall, then spirals himself into it. On the street above a steamroller drives towards me; a handkerchief falls slowly underneath the steel wheel as the sound of a piano being tuned resonates softly in the background. I really hope it doesn’t come true.
Tags: bar mitzvahs, Felicity Ward, Felicity Ward Reads from The Book of Moron, Gilded Balloon, irritable bowel syndrome, Mervyn Sutter's Spirit of the Fringe Award, moustaches, Outstanding comedian newcomers, peri-peri chilli charts, Sportsmen, The Book of Moran