Review from the Women In Comedy festival

Bella Humphries is a fizzing ball of cheery vitality, gushing away about her responsibilities as the eldest of seven children and how she doesn't want children herself.

But while the talkative comedian is a thoroughly endearing presence, the content for an hour-long show is slight. Never mind big sister energy: this is more first date, keen-to-please, getting-to-know-you energy, as she eagerly covers the main bases of her life – having siblings, having a dog, loving her nephew, and recalling youthful memories of nightclubbing in Swindon.

The stories are, for the most part, mildly amusing anecdotes more than polished stand-up. A few routines do end on a gag, but they're in the minority – the show is led by personality rather than writing.

As for that personality, you can tell a lot from her stage get-up – child’s angel wings, a Victorian-style nightie, and fluffy slippers - an attempt, she says, to bring the whimsy. Job done. 

It also speaks to the wider theme of the show, of being able to do as she pleases, free of responsibility now she’s not longer the leader of all those siblings. She’s happy with her decision not to be a mother, despite fellow parents insisting she’ll one day change her mind.

Living in this carefree – or feckless – way while contemporaries are settling down with proper jobs and families is a common theme in thirtysomething stand-ups like her. With male comedians, it often feels like man-child arrested development, but Humphries embraces the choice with the same effusive gusto with which she performs.

Her garrulous nature maintains momentum, but is also a cover for scant content. And at the start, she slightly gabbles, frequently saying something flippant then clarifying: ‘That’s not true.’ The habit undermines our faith in her as a narrator, as well as displaying a lack of confidence in herself, though she does soon move away from this. 

Sometimes she seems to oversimplify, for example, putting all divorced women into the same category of party-time girls out on the prosecco – however long it’s been since the split. Nor is there any interrogation of that reaction; it’s just taken as pure celebration. 

Apart from being down on parents – insisting you don’t have to have given birth to enjoy a magical, rewarding, or even tiring, life – positivity is the touchstone of Big Sister Energy. 

That she's living her best life is palpable, even before she spells it out so explicitly as her conclusion. But ‘good vibes only’ is not enough to sustain a full-length comedy show, however engaging her ditzy company.

Review date: 12 Oct 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Manchester The Fitzgerald