No, not the pink variety with a funny nose and curly tail, but instead the play by American Neil LaBute. Fat Pig has been on at the Trafalgar Studios in central London since May and Mr C and I finally got round to going with some friends on Monday evening.
The play has quite a simple plot behind it. Thin bloke meets fat woman and starts dating her. His work colleague can't believe it and winds him up about it. His ex-girlfriend, who also happens to work with him, isn't at all impressed and kicks up quite a fuss when she finds out. All this additional pressure on the relationship puts things under strain and the key question has to be will be go with true love, or bow down to the pressure of those around him?
One of the main draws of the play has to be the cast. There are only four characters in the play and three of the actors playing them are well known from television. The main one, in my mind, was Kris Marshall who is best known for his role as Nick in My Family and is also well known for his current role as the "boyfriend" in the BT television adverts. He is quite simply a fantastic actor in my opinion was by far the best of the cast. He plans the character Carter perfectly and certainly made me laugh.
Appearing on stage along side him was Robert Webb, one half of comedy duo Mitchell and Webb. Now I do have to admit to not being such a huge Mitchell and Webb fan, but have to admit that his acting was very good in Fat Pig. It was interesting seeing him in a role that wasn't always after laughs from the audience / viewer.
The play overall wasn't as good as I hoped. I still enjoyed the evening, but Mr C wasn't too impressed. As it's set in America all the cast put on American accents that at times really distracted from the play itself. It seemed such as shame as I think the play could have very easily been re-set in the UK and the accents dropped.
Had the male cast members not been there then I think the play would be much poorer for it. Interesting therefore to see that this is actually the last week with the current cast and from later this month there will be two new male actors. Later in the year one of the female roles is also due to be taken over by Kelly Brook. I'm not too sure how that one will work out, but I guess time will tell. I'm just glad I saw the play when we did.
Nova Broomhall says
One wonders why the cast was so poor with the accents, when so many American actors nail British accents, and one American show, “The Riches”, has Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver; playing Americans in the South. Actors are required to learn accents, aren’t they?
Mrs C says
I think it wasn’t so much a case of the cast not doing the accents well enough, but instead that we’re so used to Marshall and Webb (in particular) speaking with English accents that it just seemed strange that they were not doing so. Maybe it’s just the fact that we as the audience knew the actors so well that it didn’t work? Not sure really…