Danielle Ward in Glorious Technicolour

Danielle Ward claims to be the second most famous person that ever went to her school, she even has a letter to prove it.

Given that only the most eagle-eyed of Mock The Week viewers are likely to have the faintest clue as to who she is, this is perhaps a poor reflection on her fellow alumni. However what perturbs Ward most is the fact that the person that pipped her to the post is renowned simply for being the offspring of animal-abusing circus trainer Mary Chipperfield.

All this has left Ward in a retrospective mood and sets her off down a Memory Lane full of embarrassing situations and regrets. She details, in her rather whiney voice, her first sexual experiences and her obsession with circus freaks, concluding that her biggest regrets consist of those things she has done, rather than—as the popular cliché goes—the things she missed out on.

Ward is a perfectly likable performer, but the show suffers for a recurrent lack of reference points. She cites a number of real-life and fictional characters, none of whom her audience have any familiarity with. In these cases a couple of illustrative props or a few brief introductory explanations would have gone a very long way, but instead the joke is lost on many as Ward backtracks to fill in the gaps.

Ward’s fascination with the weird and wonderful could develop into interesting areas, but she is not a practiced enough guide to keep her audience in on the joke.