Hilariously dark, widely funny and heavily pregnant, Bella Hull takes us through an hour of comedy that has the crowd in stitches. The Londoner loves getting uncomfortably close to the audience, asking increasingly revealing questions, which immediately creates an unpredictable atmosphere.
Ten years into her career, Hull has developed a brilliantly unhinged stage presence. She’s pregnant; she takes us through the complications of being a woman and her dating life, listing an increasingly convincing number of reasons why she absolutely should not have a boyfriend.
“If there’s another heatwave, I’ll become an ISIS bride.”
It is an outrageous line, but Bella Hull delivers it with such conviction that it showcases the chaotic, darkly comic energy of her hour. Her family life provides some of the strongest material. Growing up surrounded almost entirely by women, living with her mother and grandmother, Hull explores the emotional consequences of having so few men around her. A throwaway verbal attack, she explains, can lodge itself deep in her psyche for years.
At 28, and having performed since she was 17, Hull has bags of experience, and it shows. They say motherhood and comedy have the same physical and obsessive demands, and Hull shows she can do both with ease.
Bella Hull: Mad Cow Disease, 12:30 at Monkey Barrel 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy at 12:30 pm until August 30
