Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Bella Green’s debut show could well be subtitled ‘all you ever wanted to know about the sex industry but were afraid – or ashamed – to ask’. For this hour opens a conversation – in a casual, light-hearted way – about a business that’s still largely taboo.

Her experience in the field includes brothels and strip clubs, peepshows and dungeons, giving her a rare first-hand insight. For six years in her early twenties she had a conventional job, working in a bank’s call centre, but found that more demeaning than anything she was asked to do in her sex work.

She proves an affable guide through some of the, erm, ins and outs of her job, from what makes a good brothel receptionist, the sort of clients such businesses attract, and the wide variety of women who offer their services there  It’s workplace comedy but with a most unusual workplace. And probably most insightful is the way she thinks about her job as a ‘full service’ prostitute in her own mind, and whether she considers it ‘empowering’.

 It’s all very fatter-of-fact, which is good for opening up the subject, even though it’s the more extreme tales that are best for comedy yet thinner on the ground. The funniest – and grossest – story concerns an encounter with a coprophiliac punter that will make even the strongest-stomached audience member gag.

But while she is thoroughly engaging, Green’s attempts at full-on comedy tend to backfire. There are a few sketches and act-outs here which are painfully unfunny, while the costume changes they require kill the momentum stone dead. Embarrassing text exchanges with her customers are shown on a screen to cover the gaps, but save for one, they are unremarkable.

Bella Green Is Charging For It is, then, an interesting honest and cheekily good-natured look at a profession that still exists in the shadows but short on moments of outright hilarity.

Review date: 10 Apr 2019
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival