If you’ve seen the Australian version of The Office you’ll know Felicity Ward for her brilliant performance as the ditzy and incompetent boss Hannah Howard. In her latest stand up show she makes the case for being exhausting to everyone who knows her in real life. Yet, this expert comedian is anything but.
In a superb hour of comedy she explores aging, sex, veganism and her seemingly chaotic life. This chaos she claims comes from being diagnosed with ADHD – not by the medical profession but by colleagues, friends, and sometimes even by complete strangers.
Ward is a very confident yet accessible comedian who has a genuine rapport with the audience and seems to enjoy making jokes about a wide range of topics and especially herself and the people she is closest to.
The entire hour was superb but standouts included being persuaded to get transition lenses which made her look like a predator and a hilarious takedown of vegan food which included saying the word quorn over and over to devastating effect. In case you are wondering, quorn is a meat substitute product made from fungi that she says ‘gets rid of the flavour but keeps the chew.’
What’s great about Ward’s comedy is that while edgy it never gets nasty even when she takes potshots at her own family which includes raising a ‘fascist’ toddler she affectionately refers to as ‘Fucko’. She made fun of her own cleavage, shared the secrets of pregnancy women are never told about, and gives a pretty good impression of a giraffe. The set ends with what she describes as six minutes of advice to men on how to pleasure a woman. I won’t give the game away, but it was so uproariously funny I had trouble breathing.
Felicity Ward is at the top of her game and is very, very cool – miss her at your peril.
Check out my interview with Felicity Ward and Edith Poor about the Aussie version of The Office:
FELICITY WARD I’M EXHAUSTING!
6-10 May 2025
Q Theatre, Loft – Auckland