‘Nerdy’ comedian in confessional but biting mood as she comes ‘home’

A COMEDIAN who used to live in Henley is returning to perform.

Bella Hull is on the bill for the next Honk! live comedy night with her latest show Piggie before she takes it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The 25-year-old, who now lives in North London, says she missed Henley.

“It’s a gorgeous place, really lovely,” she says. “My mum and stepdad lived in Greys Road from 2016 to about 2020.

“It was when I was at university, so I was there in the holidays for a few years.

“I used to work in Maison Blanc before it closed. I used to go in the Ferret all the time and spend all my money on weird amethyst rings. I used to take them home and realise that they were disgusting.

“I love the Ferret, the Bell Bookshop and the Richard Way bookshop as well. I was just a very bookish little teenager, so I was always in those shops and in Paperchase.

“When I was revising for my A-levels and my uni exams I would walk up to the lock and watch the water rushing down and let the wind blow the cobwebs away. It’s so beautiful.”

Bella’s first show was in 2022 and was called Babycakes.

She recalls: “I was quite inexperienced at the time and had quite a ditsy persona. Piggie feels I think much closer to the true person that I am.

“It’s about the different gluttonous things that I do and searching for meaning. It’s kind of a big allegory about belief, so it’s quite ambitious but I’m really excited.”

Bella was driven by the idea of stand-up even though she admits it terrified her.

She says: “The physical symptoms of anxiety, I viewed as something that just needed to get out of the way of this deeper desire that I had.

“It kind of didn’t feel like a choice almost, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it and had to keep going even though I was really scared. I’m quite a nerdy person and I get quite obsessively into different people and different things.

“My dad is Indian and when my parents divorced, I mainly grew up in London.

“I was a very insular kid that just watched loads of TV. I watched lots of new stand-up comedy and American sitcoms and stuff.

“When you’re watching six hours of E4 every day, you start to think of your life as a bit of a sitcom and I just became fascinated with the idea of doing stand-up comedy.

“I would say I’m quite cheerful on stage but the things I’m saying are quite sniping.

“People have said that I come on stage with a big, beaming smile and then I say something that’s such a stab. I’m a mixture of really smiley and really biting.

“The Honk! show I’m doing in Henley is my last before Edinburgh. I’ll be talking about different stages of my life and Henley is a real part of that. I think it’s really interesting doing stories about the person that you were, in a certain time of your life, in the place where you lived at the time.

“I think that that will give it a bit more heart and make it a bit juicier for Henley.

“I remember I went to the Rewind festival when I was quite young — I think I must have been like 14 or 15 — and I took my friend Charlie with me.

“Spandau Ballet were singing Gold and that was the first live music I’d ever seen. Me and Charlie, we snuck in some alcohol in a tiny shampoo bottle that we’d rinsed out and had a really good time.

“I was just ignoring the fact that my mum and stepdad were there in the background...”

Also on the bill is Andrew Maxwell with a work in progress preview of his show The Bare Maximum.

• Bella Hull is at the Honk! Henley comedy night at the Relais Henley on Monday, July 29 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost from £11.55. Visit linktr.ee/honkhot