Look out, Edinburgh. Edgy, refreshing comic had us shifting in our seats

Honk! Henley
The Relais Henley
Sunday, July 29

TOM Ryan’s enterprising comedy evenings have gone down well in Henley.

The monthly shows at the Relais are sell-outs.

This month’s event was a preview for comedians Bella Hull and Andrew Maxwell as they prepare for the Edinburgh Fringe and gauge audience responses to their material.

Kooky Bella is chatty and confident in her tech-savvy, young adult persona.

She started off with a riff on flat-sharing in London and what she has learned from her neighbour, an elderly Jehovah’s Witness.

She mined her childhood obsession with food, how she scoffed her granny’s birthday cake and cadged crisps from the builder, even dwelling on the existential aspects of eating and digesting. Advent calendars appal her, offering mere sim cards of chocolate. The philosophical vein continued as she compared belief — in religion, astrology or Aston Villa — as different types of fantasy.

Preferable, though, to fantasising about money which has led to millionaire’s shortbread being upgraded to billionaire’s shortbread. She ranged across chihuahuas, growing up and dating the wrong guy.

Bella’s material is ironic and extremely edgy, crossing into taboo areas that had some audience members, myself included, shifting in their seats. But she is also uniquely fresh and funny.

Cheery Dubliner Andrew Maxwell had the room in stitches as he analysed recent politics, across the globe and locally. He has a good ear for language and, as a gifted mimic, is able gently to mock “eejits” (himself included), Essex geezers and Germans who have impeccable English, as well as overly upbeat New Zealanders and Polynesian bouncers. His hilarious anecdotes were delivered with great timing and animation.

His main topic, though, is Ireland and his home town. He was tickled by an art installation, a livestreaming portal set up between Dublin and New York, for the way it overlooked differences between the two cultures.

He admires the resilience of Dubliners and took a comical look at the Dublin eccentrics he met while filming there recently.

Returning to the personal, Andrew ran fluently and funnily through midlife crises, being married and an unfortunate mistaken text message to a taxi driver.

He ended with a poignant account of the illness and death of his sport-loving father and. with his lovely natural manner, was able to turn even a sad occasion into comic gold.

We were lucky to get an insight into what these two very different comics are taking to Edinburgh. Wishing them the best of luck and lots of laughs.

Susan Creed