Felicity Ward’s latest show, The Iceberg, has nothing to do withTitanic.A mere 10-20 per cent of an iceberg is above the surface. The majority of it lies beneath, and that’s what Ward wants to explore in her show; the concept of appearance versus reality. “The thing that actually got me onto the idea wasn’t anything to do with the show. It was basically that I thought I knew myself pretty well and then I got into a relationship and realised how damaged I actually was and how much stuff I still need to figure out. And so it was the idea of when you look at yourself or look at someone else you think you understand the situation but then the water drains and you realise how much more to it there is.”

One might question how the comedian was inspired by such a serious and thought-provoking topic. “Appearance vs. reality is a pretty broad concept and can be applied to almost anything. The idea was to just write stand-up that I really like and figure out how those two relate and bring that stand up into the concept.”

Fans of Ward will notice that her material for The Iceberg differs a fair bit from her previous work, “It’s pretty different in that it’s the least personal show that I’ve done. There’s not a lot of stories about my family or stories about relationships that I’ve been in or any of that. It’s basically observational and if anything it’s a reflection of looking back at Australia while I’ve been overseas, because I’ve been away for the last year. So it’s looking back at how we are as a people from an outsider’s perspective.”

The Iceberg also ventures into the realm of politics and social issues in a way that Ward hasn’t explored before. “There’s a little bit about where we’re standing politically and our attitudes at the moment…where we stand with asylum seekers and our attitude towards racism in Australia. I’ve never talked about that stuff before. Someone came up to me after the show last night and asked, ‘Why haven’t you done it [before]?’ I said, ‘Because you need to be funnier than you are angry.’ [In the past] I’ve been too angry to talk about it in a funny way. I think my anger has now reached a tipping point and I can be objective about it now.”

Grab tickets toThe Iceberg at Enmore Theatre from Thursday May 8 to Sunday May 11 through Ticketek, as a part of the Sydney Comedy Festival.

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