Published on The Pun, 30 March 2010

When it comes to self-deprecating humour, Felicity Ward can deprecate with the best of them. Her performance at last year’s MICF, Felicity Ward’s Ugly as a Child Variety Show, contained a liberal sprinkling of anecdotes about her idiotic misadventures. This year she cracks open the Book of Moron, a hefty tome she has penned full of stories of her own stupidity.

Wearing a blazer and cravat and clutching a pipe to her mouth, Felicity sits in a comfy armchair and reads aloud from her book. Across the way onstage, fellow Ronnie Johns Half Hour/3rd Degree member James Pender accompanies her on guitar, dressed as a dog.

The stories themselves are funny enough but as is always the case with Felicity Ward, the real hilarity stems from her outlandishly physical delivery. As she is fond of telling her audiences, Felicity weighs 48 kilograms and has ‘big features on a small head’. Summoning every fibre of dorkiness within her, she flings her gangly limbs all over the place, contorts her face, stretches, bends and flexes in a stunning display of pure, untainted dag.

While Ugly as a Child was like being trapped in an anxiety-powered tumble dryer while laughing so hard that a little bit of wee comes out, The Book of Moron is a marginally more relaxed affair. But while her material is rather gentle this year, Felicity Ward is clearly one of the best comic morons in the country.