Don't Panic!

"Oh my God, my second year in Edinburgh, I had a really hard year.

"I was about three weeks in and I needed some kind of emotional nurturing so I thought, I know, let's all go and watch Toy Story 3. Now, I don't know if you've seen Toy Story 3. The bit where they are in the lava pit, right? In my head, I said, if they go down, I am actually going to die. Because I am not in a place where I can deal with six lovable toys that I have been following for ten years... well, I was not going to say goodbye to them."

For what it's worth, Woody, Buzz and pals survive the lava pit – a victory, most obviously, for the virtue of toys sticking together through the toughest of times but in no small way a win for Edinburgh, too. Had they succumbed, Felicity Ward might never have returned to the city with the mad, joyous hour of stand up she has spent the past four nights ripping through. Possibly, it would not be the same confident, comfortable and engaging Australian with whom I'm sat chatting in the bonny afternoon Bristo Square sun. Most definitely, Pixar would have some explaining to do to account for having nipped in the bud success that, it would transipire, was only a year away.

"Last year was a dream year," Ward confesses. "I'm not used to there being any carry on from the year before in Edinburgh, but this year people are coming to the show and having a good time, and I'm having a good time. So to feel you've made any progress in Edinburgh is wonderful. That's success, even just in my heart more than anything else."

Then again, it is perhaps no surprise that 2010's worried newbie snaked it past another potential stopping-off point. For Ward's route into standup is peppered with potential pitfalls – a career, indeed, that almost never happened: "I started off in sketch. I was never ever going to do standup. Ever. Like, it was an offensive idea to me.

"With sketch you can be a character, so if people are laughing at you they're not laughing at you. They're laughing at a character. There's still an element of detatchment between you and what's on stage. But with standup the only way I know how to be funny is if I'm being honest about something, so that makes you incredibly vulnerable. I'm quite an open book when I'm on stage."

But fate, it seems, was to intervene, contriving a chance meeting that appears to have served two functions: the first, to usher the then ex-sketch artist a step closer to standup; the second, to push Australian comedy supremo Adam Hills a step closer to beatification, cementing his reputation as the nicest man in comedy. "We went to one of [Hills'] live shows and met afterwards," she says. "We were all sitting around having a joke... and he said if you can be half this funny, I will get you on my TV show in Australia. I was like, that's a really nice thing to say, as if that's going to happen. And then two weeks later I get a phone call saying 'hey, we would like to invite you on the panel show' and I'm like 'what the fuck is going on!'.

Thrust eventually into the position of doing a 12 minute standup slot, Ward had a revelation: "Halfway through that set I went 'oh my God, this is what I love doing'. And that was it! That was five and a half years ago." And that, surely, was it? A straight pass through to success in Edinburgh, with only a Toy Story 3-shaped blip? Wrong again. Ward speaks openly and hilariously about her battles with anxiety, a condition which, in 2010, saw her having to conceal panic attacks on stage, nearly caused her to quit comedy, and left her convinced, night after night, that she was going to wet herself on stage – a worry that, she confirms, never actually came to fruition. "When you start to talk about the crazy shit that you do backstage or before a show... it's actually really funny," she laughs breezily.

And there's no shortage of good reasons to be breezy right now. Were this a morality tale, our hero would be guaranteed a cruise ship of a Fringe. Anxiety-free, hauling in great reviews for a show Ward herself describes as "a joy" to do, and taking satisfaction in "improving every year" at a job she loves, this, surely, is the Australian's moment to bask in the sun?

Or perhaps not. "I'm actually going back to Australia for a couple of days next week for a job! So that's a weird thing. It's good. It's unusual. I'll get back on the Friday and do a show that night so…we'll see how that goes!" Think your Fringe is hard work, eh? Let's just hope they keep it safe with the in-flight films.