Review – The Hedgehog Dilemma

When Felicity Ward eventually galloped across the stage, ten minutes late, it was only to recruit the audience to be part of her DVD. Apparently, this was the last time her Hedgehog Dilemma show was to be performed live. So, after another ten minutes of demanding laughs and cheers for the record, the show began. I was now perturbed and definitely not in the mood for laughing. But Felicity had other, far more hilarious plans for me.

As she brashly and animatedly shout-talked her way through the next hour, I fell for her brave honesty and awkward quirkiness.

The show was a memoir of sorts and Felicity certainly pulled no punches. She donned the various outfits that were scattered around the stage and took the audience on a journey through her adult life with tales of alcoholism, sexual insecurity and having to move back in with her parents after a failed relationship.

As her show closed for the last time and we arrived to meet the person she is today, I was still laughing, but there was also something else. Was it a little sadness for the things she struggled through? Or maybe it was pride for how far she had come?

Either way The Hedgehog Dilemma was darkly funny, explicit and bittersweet; if the eyes truly are the windows to the soul then Felicity opens hers wide and welcomes the world to come and take a peek inside.

[Note: Sometimes in the silliness that is a festival a review or two gets lost between the floorboards. Heckler is tightening its systems to minimise this but in the mean time we will be posting some belated reviews.]