After a highly acclaimed debut, Bella Hull returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with her new hour Piggie. Here she talks to Katerina Partolina Schwartz about her show and reflects on her experience of the comedy industry thus far and the internet’s impact on it.
Every time you write a new joke and it works, it kind of feels like a magic trick
What would you say is the central theme of Piggie?
Piggie is about appetites and self-control; there are lots of different people that I talk about – myself included – and what I’m trying to do is think about and reveal the reasons why we all behave the way that we do. It’s a little bit personal but I also don’t want it to be this kind of one-woman diaristic confessional. The aim of the show is for it to be funny, but the truth of the show - deeply buried down - is thinking about why we get ourselves into this situation, and what we can learn from it now that the situation has ended.
How does Piggie relate to your previous show Babycakes?
I was reasonably new to stand-up comedy and I kind of just wanted to put all of the material that I’d ever written in an hour. At least I felt this pressure to tell my life story in the debut show, and I don’t feel the need to do that in this show; I think it’s more interesting to focus on one theme and then thread that through a few different strands of things that have happened to you. This show is a more distilled analysis of different things that have happened to me or different parts of my life, and it's slightly more focused. But it does relate; my first show was about my adolescence and this show is almost about my childhood. So, in a way, it’s like the prequel. Also, my first show was such a huge learning curve for me and I hope that I’ve taken those lessons and really learned them in order to come back and deliver something better to an audience.
What do you hope audiences take away from your show?
I hope that they will take away the message of having slightly more empathy towards yourself. I hope a lot of the show will be very relatable to people, but I hope that it will be stuff that they don’t realise they relate to before, and afterwards they’ll think, “Oh yeah actually I can identify with that". That’s always the aim for me. I used to really think that comedy was all about me. I used to think being onstage was all about my voice and what I have to say- and it kind of is about that- but it’s also about the audience and it’s all about what the audience can take away from something. I just want them to enjoy it and feel warm and human and good from the show.
How would you describe your comedy style?
I think my comedy style is very honest; it’s quite sincere. I used to do more irony-poisoned stuff, because I grew up just consuming memes and stupid stuff. I actually think that my comedy now is a bit more vulnerable but every vulnerable thing I say, I’m saying from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t care that it’s vulnerable. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me; that’s totally not the point. So, I think it’s brutal, hopefully poetic, and occasionally disgusting, that’s kind of what I want it to be. I like the idea of lots of light and shades; so big awful, disgusting routines and then saying something really sweet and really profound and then move on.
How did you start off doing comedy?
I started doing comedy when I was 17 and I did an open mic. I lived in London at the time, so I just did that and it was terrifying. I was doing that for a bit. And then I did a bit of comedy at uni, but where I went to uni it was mainly sketch comedy and that wasn’t really my forte. Then after I graduated, I got back into the open mic scene and it kind of just grew from there. So, I had 4 years of doing it on and off when I was a teenager, but I was so terrified of doing it. But when I graduated in my mind I had the option to completely give up and just get a job, have a stable life, and be happy but always think in the back of my mind, “What if I’d just gone for it?” Or I could just go for it and it’ll be terrifying and disastrous and you know, there’ll be loads of ups and downs but at least I’ll know what happened. I mean it’s weird because I’m not a very courageous person really, I hate confrontation and I can’t speak directly to people; if I’ve got some friendship issue or a thing with somebody that I’m working with, I find it really hard to call them up on the phone and say, “Look, what’s going on?” But I think that I just really wanted to try it and see if it could work. I’ve been very lucky that opportunities have come my way and I hope that they continue to do so.
What would you say is your favourite part of being a comedian?
I think my favourite part of being a comedian is probably just gigging but more so when the gig is going really well, when you’re saying something new and it’s really working. That’s kind of the best feeling in a way. I think what’s kind of addictive about comedy is also what’s terrifying about it, which is the risk and it’s the risk that you could say something; really hope that it gets one response and it gets a totally different response. Every time you write a new joke and it works, it kind of feels like a magic trick and that feeling never goes away. Like even if you write a hundred jokes that you think are good, your one hundred and first joke could be bad so that trust in yourself never comes really, and so I think the best moments are just being onstage and making something new and thinking, “Oh this is even better than what I’ve done before".
How has comedy changed post-pandemic?
I don’t know this for sure, but I feel like the open mic scene took a bit of a hit. Before the pandemic, if you wanted to, you could do an open mic every single day of the week in London. Open mics are run by people who know that they’re not going to make that much money from them, they solely exist to give stage to underdeveloped comedians or comedians that are at the embryonic stage of what it is they’re gonna do or say. In a way, those were the perfect sandpits; to do loads of open mics, and build up your routines, but I feel like financially the pandemic ruined a lot of those business models. There’s kind of been a recovery now, I think in a way, because people became so fed up with being at home, everybody wants to go out more now or people make a bigger deal out of going out. I think that it’s slightly affected things more specifically say in the city of London, it’s hard to do a gig on a Friday because loads of people work from home on a Friday now, so Thursday night comedy has become much bigger and it’s kind of because people are working more remotely. That homogeny of everyone being in the same place has been slightly disrupted, but I also think that’s positive in a lot of ways.
How has your own experience of comedy compared to others in the industry who started maybe 10, 20 years ago?
I think there were far fewer comedians 10 or 20 years ago. Also, there were far fewer female, queer or POC acts around and that’s kind of changed now and that’s a really good thing. I think it feels almost like talking to somebody who is from the 80s about getting on the housing market and they’re like, “Well, I just arrived, and I could buy a house for 10p and like I don’t know why it’s so hard for your generation,” kind of thing. And it’s harder to reach that now. But I think also in a way, a lot of comedians that started in the 80s or 90s, don’t know how to do social media. I grew up on social media; social media is the most natural thing in the world for me and I know how to do it, I know what looks good, hopefully, and I can edit things. And I think it’s overwhelming for someone who started their career thinking TV would be the way forward and now that’s changed, TV is just an extra. But the actual meat and potatoes of a career is kind of pushing yourself online.
Apart from your own show, what other show at the Fringe would you recommend?
I would recommend Bebe Cave’s show The Screen Test, I think that’ll be great and Sarah Roberts’ show Silkworm. They’re both doing their first solo shows this year and I think that they’ll both be really good and really interesting, and probably a similar kind of vibe to what I’m doing. If you like my show, then go check them out.
