Fat Pig – Review
Review of Fat Pig at Trafalgar Studios
Fat Pig has its opening night next week, right after the Bank Holiday weekend, so the performance I saw last night may not be fully representative of how it will be played from then onwards, with continuous refinement being a necessity.
It’s American
The first thing I hadn’t anticipated from my scant research, what with the cast list boasting “The country’s hottest actor-comedians” is that it’s an American play. So these well known faces from British TV have to act the parts as Americans, with all the cultural nuances, language, gestures, comedy style and spoken accents that entails. I had a really hard time getting used to it, and evidently so did some of the cast. So what’s the point? I spent far too much of my own attention during the first half-hour trying to evaluate how much effort it would take to rewrite the script to set the story in the UK. Are we not well off for British playwrighting talent at present – I don’t know. Or is the money only interested in backing shows that have already proved their earning potential in the states? (Fat Pig played in New York already) But hang on, this is the Trafalgar Studios – a supposed bridge for new productions offering “theatre that is uniquely fresh, stimulating and challenging”.
Fat
Which brings me to the headline topic of this play, the politics of fat. Yikes, if you’re going to use such a provoking title as Fat Pig you’d think there would be something positive to conclude. I was promised “an ultimately touching love story” but can hardly claim to have been left with an uplifting message. Another possible thought excercise is to try rewriting the play with the contentious issue being the reactions dating a black woman rather than a fat one. Now try holding the same implications!
Robert Webb as Tom played a blinder, outshining the other three in my opinion, although Ella Smith as Helen was the more convincing American and played a believable role right up until the final scene. The other three american accents began to deteriorate in the second act, with one magnificent tirade from Joanna Page gaining a round of applause or was it for recognition of the emergence of a familiar Welsh character?
Discussion
The revolving stage worked flawlessly for transporting the plot progression through five very different locations, so that was really well managed in this close-up theatre, and the loud guitar music made me jump at each scene change, but perhaps that was the intention. This is a real live theatre play experience, moving and challenging, that may induce anger as much as laughter, but one thing is for sure – there was plenty to talk about for hours afterwards and anybody who is interested, whether having seen Fat Pig or not over the forthcoming months is invited to discuss the issues, boldly but tactfully, in the comments here on London Theatre Breaks.
P.S. Was it funny? – Not really, but there are moments.
Other Reviews:
Why take on a weighty subject? – Evening Standard
Kris Marshall on Fat Pig and his car acccident – The Times Online
Beauty and the beastly – Neil LaBute’s new comedy deals darkly with a weighty matter – Independent
Review of Fat Pig, Trafalgar Studios – West End Whingers
andy:
thanks for your absolute wank of a review–one minute you wonder what is the point of putting on the play, the next you call it “moving and challenging.” try having an opinion next time. oh, and thanks for all the playwrighting advice–yes, it could be rewritten for an english setting
or with a black female character instead of a fat one, or a fat black
one, for that matter. that would be called a ‘different’ play.
either learn to write better reviews or get a backbone and try writing a play yourself. that would be a treat. i’m sure we’d all like to have a look at that.
nl
I watched this play on Thursday and all in all, I was very unimpressed. Tom’s character is definitely the most convincing and well executed, you’re right. I don’t think that Kris Marshall manages to pull off an American character but maybe this is more due to his English fame than his acting ability. Furthermore, his scruffy, gangly appearance just does not suit the high profile executive character, Carter, with his bluetooth headset permanently stuck to his ear. Most of my frustration with the play stems from Joanna Page. She was such a weak and annoying presence on stage that I found myself holding my breath every time she appeared from the wings. I’ve seen high school performances more effective than hers. And, I’m not talking about her attempt at an American accent alone which was, to be kind, laughable. The humour of the play is, well, American. There are some amusing moments (produced by both Ella Smith and Robert Webb’s excellent comedic timing) but nothing side-splitting or very smart, for that matter. There are moments where the play makes a swipe at the actual politics of appearance but they are infrequent and fairly short sighted. The script itself is lacking in many areas. It seems completely unnecessary to spend so much time on Tom and Jeanie’s relationship. What is the point of this? Merely to show us that Tom has the heterosexual male’s fantasy woman begging for his attention but he actually cares more about personality than appearance? Why does it need to go on and on with Jeanie whining away scene after painful scene? In short, I left the theatre rueing a misspent £25 and thinking that maybe a film would have been a better choice.
It’s already a different play to the original. That’s because it’s being performed by British actors in front of a London audience, and it was to that decision that I addressed my question “what’s the point?” (hint: try reading the text). I’m sorry you didn’t like the review such as it was, but much of it was clearly a review of the performance as seen, rather than of the underlying screenplay which was written with an American cast and audience in mind, and remains at that level. Where did you get the idea that I was giving advice on playwrighting or suggesting improvements? A thought excercise is just that. My point is that no way would you be able to get away with such a negative conclusion about the implications of a mixed race romance, but find it acceptable to do that with the chosen subject. Ok it’s fiction, so you can create whatever ending you like but by choosing the title “Fat Pig” you take on a responsibility to do more than just point out that there are people with prejudice in the world, which we all know about anyway. I almost wonder in which places the young american audience laughed and am reminded of the extreme right wing “shock jock” syndrome whereby the most outragious comments are made in order to be provocative, only to find a bunch of people who phone in to agree with them.
In the unwritten third act, Helen ends up with Carter by the way
andy:
i bear absolutely no responsibility for anything by calling the ’screenplay’ (we call texts for the stage ‘plays’ in america but you have lots of funny words for things in the uk) “fat pig”–and i could happily and easily have a negative conclusion for a mixed race couple in a play–take a look at “this is how it goes” sometime.
you type a lot but you don’t say much.
and faith, yes, it seems like you should probably stick to going to films– just make sure they’re english films, which are apparently ’side-splitting and smart.’ you go, girl.
nl
My mistake, the correct word is of course ‘playscript’.
It seems there’s a very good reason why Neil laBute’s plays are largely populated with unpleasant characters.
don’t take offense, andy, this has precious little to do with you–it just gets old reading reviews from writers whose only credential appears to be the fact that they own a computer (or visit the library and use the free ones); for too long reviewers have been able to say anything they want without themselves being reviewed. fair is fair.
i give you two and 1/2 stars for your work–half because you were big enough to come clean on the ‘playscript’ thing.
nl
I don’t agree about the need for credentials before being allowed to write down some thoughts after a night out at the theatre, but yes it is pretty cool that by using this medium of a blog for publishing reviews etc, the authentic author, director or whoever from a production can come on and leave their own response in kind.
I’m not sure many take advantage of the opportunity though, so thanks for that.
Andy
Just got back from seeing Fat Pig. Felt compelled to write a review, then I found yours and you’ve saved me the bother. You have said exactly what I would have said.
Couldn’t get past the American accents which are terrible. It really wouldn’t have been much of a stretch to set it in London. It would have saved us having to see Joanna Page in particular struggle to keep her Welsh accent at bay.
It was very hot and very crampt in there, so we left at the interval. Something I’ve never done before. It wasn’t terrible but we could see where it was going and it wasn’t compelling enough to pull us back inside.
I won’t write anymore, because as I said you have said it all.
Thanks very much for your insights, Faith. I can sympathise with the sense of having been robbed, but I can also tell that you were paying close attention to the play despite being unimpressed and hope you would agree that any live theatre performance, even a poor one, is a richer experience than watching moving pictures, no?
Hi Elliot, I’m glad you appreciated my review. It’s a shame you left on account of an overheating theatre amongst other things. It wasn’t so bad when I was there, but the lack of leg room was very inconvenient when people wanted to get past. We were right at the back of the Victoria Apollo last month and didn’t return after the interval for similar reasons – ( too hot, poor show, people eating popcorn behind us )
Next time you think of writing a review, it’s probably best not to go and read any others first anyway.
No, I don’t think I do agree with that argument at all actually. All forms of art possess the same amount of value and I can’t say that I would ever choose watching a bad play over a good film just for the benefit of a live performance.
I thought this was forum for us to express our views not be sneered at for every word we write. You want people to have credentials but honestly, how does anyone get credentials without putting themselves to work first and reviewing when the opportunity is available? Rather we actually think about the things we watch and formulate some opinions, than walk out of play saying “oh that was nice” like so many others!
Oh OK, fair enough. That’s just my own personal preference then.
Equal value for art regardless of media – I’ll have to think about that. As a musician I usually enjoy watching fully live performance a lot more than any kind of DJ-ing or karaoke to backing tracks, though a recorded album can be a work of art that is not reproducible live, just as a film can’t be acted on stage. There’s a relationship with the live audience that feeds back into encouragement, changes of tempo, improvisation which gives me a sense of thrill from authentic experience, whereas the recorded media can feel to me a bit like it’s always going to be at least one step removed, created with high quality, but ultimately somewhat mechanical.
Ideally, we wouldn’t watch any low quality art regardless of which media is chosen, but the opportunity to be present at the moment of sincere artists giving their all is always a special treat for me.
It sounds great fun and I will be taking my plus size wife. After I have seen it I will write my review without taking any further looks at other people’s impressions. Accents don’t worry me atall. Half the population speaks with a kind of midatlantic drawl heavily spiced with South African or Australian depending on where they spent their last holiday.
I really hope you both have a stimulating and enjoyable night out at the theatre and look forward to reading the post mortem
hey everyone,
I went and saw fat pigs and overall enjoyed myself, the acting was very good and to a high standard and all the cast worked well off each other. The story itself hits home how shallow people are and how everyone always puts labels on people dispite thier on short comings.
The only gripe i could say was the accents were slippping all the time, but thats a small thing in what i consider a very good production. great stuff.
faith i think your comments on joanna page were slightly harsh, i mean cringing everytime she came on stage? i thought she was excellent, very good performance. What was it that made you hate the performance so much?
John
I watched Fat Pig this week, and whilst I have to agree about the accents slipping, this didn’t really spoil the play for me. I thought of Joanna Page as some sort of ex-pat who has been in the US for a few years – this helped!
Overall, it was funny, tackled an interesting subject and the acting was first rate – having familiar faces always helps too – it was well cast too – the characters playing parts similar to those we know them for on the TV.
Of course, it wasn’t perfect…. I felt it ended just as it began to get really interesting… but nevertheless many of the critics in the newspapers and the radio are being, perhaps, a little too harsh IMHO.
I went to see Fat Pig last night (largely because of Robert Webb and Joanna Page) and was pretty disappointed. It’s not just the in-and-out American accents, which were very distracting and seemed unnecessary, but that the play seemed to have only one point to make and made it without any surprises and at what seemed like great length (even though it’s quite a short play).
Personally I didn’t think it was particularly funny (although to be fair there were quite a few laughs from the rest of the audience). But worse than that, it played out exactly as I’d expected with nary a twist or a turn in sight. Not what I expected from a playwright with a big reputation.
As for plays being more satisfying than moving pictures per se, I disagree. I’d been watching a couple of episodes of The Wire before coming out (box set: about £20) and was disappointed to have spent £45 on a play that exhibited barely a fraction of that series’ wit and brilliance.
Decent perfomances, though (especially Ella Smith), and always good to hear the White Stripes.
Saw Fat Pig last night; as a comedy it is utter rubbish.
When you watch a comedy one naturally assumes that, well, there will be points where you laugh. The opening scene was somewhat amusing but it went downhill from there. There were chunks where the audience sat in silence for minutes at a time; after the interval I doubt there was more than a handful of chuckles.
Seriously, it was that bad.
As others have said, seeing three well known British actors speaking with an American accent was laughable (ironic, given the lack of comedy elsewhere). Joanna Page simply can’t do an American accent and the other two struggle. These actors are known for bouncing off others to create naural banter that makes us all laugh; speaking with woeful American accents makes this virtually impossible.
If Fat Pig was billed as a drama then maybe I would have left the theatre feeling significantly less annoyed.
As it stands I feel utterly cheated that I was drawn in with the promise of a comedy, with three of the best comedy actors around, and instead witnessed a dull lesson in life that, shock-horror, beauty is more than skin deep yet fat women still doesn’t get their guys.
Do not go and see Fat Pig.
Well, as an average theatre goer I actually quite enjoyed Fat Pig. Do you need to leave the theatre having learnt a life lesson? Does a play have to have a really deep and meaningful message? I don’t think so. Yes, the accents weren’t great, but who cares, it was a funny, enjoyable couple of hours, with some laughs from some very good actors.
I just get the feeling from these other reviews that everyone is going into the theatre determined not to enjoy themselves and then blaming what isn’t a bad play.
So, if you’d like a nice night out at the theatre, do go and see Fat Pig.
Thanks very much for your forthright review Gerard. I notice that the post-show discussion between the cast and audience on July 1st covered mostly the same topics again: “The cast’s preconceptions of Neil LaBute, the decision not to set the play in the UK, and a somewhat heated exchange on the subject of accents.”
Scott, I’m really glad you had a good time at Trafalgar Studios and for those of us who left the show with strong misgivings, well it certainly gave us something to talk about.
“Do you need to leave the theatre having learnt a life lesson? Does a play have to have a really deep and meaningful message? I don’t think so.”
That’s the point. I wanted to leave the theatre having laughed more than I sat in silence because, and this is the main crux of my disappointment, I went to see a comedy.
Instead, I got a boring life lesson, rubbish American accents and very little laughter.
well, fat pig isn’t a comedy….why the british theater company decided to produce it as a ‘rom-com’ was silly.
it’s a love story, through and through… the humour is sharp, the wit is clean, and the hole it leaves in the heart, as any decent love story (not a romance, where everyone ends up happy happy) allows you to hear the wind whistle in the empty space.
i can’t sort out why some british actors can’t sort out an american accent… it’s simple to do. if you can’t do it, don’t take the part.