A night of big belly laughs

The title of Alison Spittle’s new show is quite arresting: ‘Fat Bitch’.

The Celt wonders if the “fat” or “bitch” is the more offensive part, but either way it’s a struggle to even say the phrase down the phone to Alison, even though she came up with the title.

The Westmeath comedian is bringing Fat Bitch (A Work in progress) to the Townhall Arts Centre as one of the highlights of Cavan Arts Festival. The Cavan show is slotted between dates in Dublin’s Olympia and Belfast’s Waterfront before she takes it on to the world famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer where it will be performed under a different title.

“I’m not allowed to call it Fat Bitch in Edinburgh - the council won’t allow me to put it on a poster,” she explains.

“And also Instagram, Meta, Facebook - they wilfully block the algorithm from promoting it, so I wouldn’t be able to promote it online.

“So this is probably one of the last ever ‘Fat Bitches’, because I’m changing the name to ‘Big’ now.”

So why the provocative title?

“I’ve been called a fat bitch my whole life I would say, especially if I go on TV. I’ve always had a weird sort of affinity with it in a way. I like to take it back, because I am fat, and I am a bitch. Sometimes,” she hastens to add.

Fat Bitch sees Alison reflect both on her own experience and society’s unhealthy attitudes to size, all wrapped up in “a joyful comedy show”.

However Alison’s show is informed by a recent perspective which she’s still processing. A health-scare last year saw doctors advise Alison that it was imperative she lose weight, and so it is a significantly more petite version of Alison who will take to the Townhall stage.

“I’ve had to make a concerted effort to lose weight, and I feel sad about that,” she says.

Her body shape was a core element of Alison’s persona throughout her life from “the fat girl in school” to the stage.

“If I wasn’t fat when I was younger I don’t think I’d be a comedian because I don’t think I’d bother trying to be funny. Trying to be funny is the thing you pick up when you’re younger and it’s always to deflect from something,” she says.

Her weight though didn’t make her unhappy. She gives an example of appearing on “Pointless Celebrities”, the BBC quiz show hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman. Alison is a self-professed super-fan of Pointless.

“It was filmed two years ago so I was fatter than I am now. I remember I was watching it with someone and they were like, ‘Jesus you’re half the size you were there.’

“They were saying that as if it was some sort of achievement, when being on Pointless was the happiest day of my life because I love that show, and it was always the thing I wanted to do. So I was the fattest I ever was, but I was the happiest I ever was. That’s what I want to do the show about.”

Incidentally she won the trophy.

“It was fantastic,” she says giddily savouring the experience again.

While she was happy as a larger lady, it seems that weight is a consideration for her at every turn. For instance, she is acutely aware that by appearing on TV she will invariably draw hateful slurs.

“I remember I was going on The Late Late Show - I had two feelings in me, one was: Oh I’m so excited about this, my ma is going to be so proud of me, it’s something I’ve grown up watching, I’m so excited I hope I don’t swear.

“And the other part of me was going: right just don’t look at your social media. Turn off Instagram, don’t worry about it.”

Alison insists she doesn’t find online insults “overwhelming”, but regards it as “a thing that you take into account”. It certainly isn’t going to deter her from her stand-up or TV.

“The annoying thing is you do have to make a choice. I just wanted to pursue comedy. The pros outweigh the cons. The cons are there, the pros definitely outweigh them, so I’ll take it on the chin, but I’ll also point it out.”

She is aware there may be others with weight issues who are more vulnerable than her. She recalls being abused online by a man who was “upset” by her appearance on TV “glorifying obesity”.

She admits to clicking into his profile where he described himself as a proud father of two girls.

“His daughter was as fat as I was when I was her age - she looked happy, but I felt so sad for her that her father felt fine about openly commenting on me. I just hope he didn’t talk that way in front of his own daughter. I’m a big girl - in both ways - but it does hurt my heart if I think about other people.”

Alison has endured insults in person too.

“Back in the day my friends would give out about being cat-called, and what I had was some men going out of their way to tell me how unattractive I was. But I didn’t dress to be attractive to them.”

A deeply troubling incident happened to Alison about a decade ago while crossing Dublin’s Ha’penny Bridge.

“There was a fella walking towards me and he just whispered into my ear: ‘You’re a fat bitch’ and he just kept walking.”

She recalls another incident in which a “young fella” she didn’t know “came up and brushed his hand across my face, and he did it because he could”.

She’s philosophical about such incidents, and knows where the fault lies.

“If someone is thinner than me, they can feel better about themselves by going, ‘Well obviously there’s something in her that I don’t have and why can’t she do this or why can’t she do that?’ But if I wasn’t fat you’d have nothing.”

She suspects such peculiar attitudes are behind those who “get so angry” over Ozempic and other weight loss injections.

“If they have an automatic negative reaction to it, why? If you go, ‘This is just an easy way out of being fat.’ What? Do you want someone to have a hard time?”

I explain my instinctive reaction against such drugs would be the fear that perfectly healthy people would take it when they have no need.

“But then even the people who take it for aesthetic reasons,” counters Alison, “they must feel a pressure from society to be aesthetically pleasing - we need to sort that out.”

She believes the motivation of people to take weight loss medication for aesthetic reasons provides a valuable insight into how society treats “fat people”.

“If they feel that scared about being fat, it’s because they feel that scared about being treated like shit and we have to then acknowledge that fat people don’t get treated that nicely.”

Her show at Cavan Arts Festival on Saturday, May 18 - where she will have support from the super-funny Fiona Frawley - is billed as a work in progress, and she equates it to the first draft of a novel where she is exploring these new perspectives on weight.

“I think we need to talk about it now and I can’t get time to breathe because I need to talk about it.”

Because we’re chatting on the phone, I wonder just how transformed she is, would I recognise her?

“Someone told me the other day, ‘I hate to break it to you Alison, you’re still fat.’ And I was like, ‘Yes!’

What’s the worst thing about losing weight?

“Having to buy new clothes, I think that’s the worst thing about losing weight, and also, people are treating me nicer, and that makes me very angry for me a year ago.”