Danny Ward: St Vitus Dance

Danny Ward opens with an explanation: as a restless child, his mother would joke he had "St Vitus Dance". His show is named after that memory. It was only recently he learned that St Vitus Dance, or Sydenham's chorea, is a real medical disorder – which, he admits, it would have been nice to know before he had thousands of flyers printed.

This typifies Ward's approach to standup: though the duds are rare, when he does make a few slight missteps, he not only recovers from them, but usually turns them into newer, better jokes.

Ward retains all the energy of his youth, but has thankfully combined it with the focus and cynicism of adulthood. Consequently, he has a talent for probing any strange fact or societal stupidity he alights on with deliberative, frustrated rationality. At one point, Ward remembers spotting a woman buying two tins of Heinz baked beans, and two tins of Aldi own brand beans. This obsesses him, and by the time Ward has finished interrogating the possible reasons for such a dual-purchase, the whole room is laughing in agreement.

Though there are plenty of well-crafted one-liners, Ward's real gift is storytelling: he can spin anecdotes out of mundanity so expertly that the story of his stay in a Travelodge at a Cardiff service station becomes a minor saga. The observational comedy of daily life is, quite naturally, unavoidable at the Fringe. As such, it not only deserves but requires unconventional approaches such as Ward's. He reminds us just how strange the everyday can be.