Alison Spittle’s show Big, at Dublin Fringe, is harrowing and hilarious

Big

Project Arts Centre, Dublin 2

★★★★☆

Alison Spittle cuts to the chase in her new show. There are no introductions, just a mission statement: “Lately I’ve been thinking about being fat.”

What follows is a bracingly honest account of life in a fat body and a reflection on the new weight-loss drugs, likely Ozempic, which she was prescribed for medical reasons. This isn’t a tale of dieting triumph. It’s about illness, accidents and the relentless public commentary that reshaped her body against her will.

She recounts infections that nearly killed her: cellulitis tipping into sepsis, fevers, doctors draining fluid from swollen legs. It’s grotesque and frightening, and she makes sure the audience feels the reality of it. At one point she recalls lying in bed, weak and surrounded by Ferrero Rocher and bacon fries, “like Willy Wonka on his deathbed”. The joke lands because of its sheer bleak creativity. Like many of the jokes, it’s laced with real pain.

[ Alison Spittle: ‘I’m treated more like a human being now I’ve lost weight’Opens in new window ]

Spittle is clear: she never wanted to change. She had always preferred to put her energy into feeling comfortable in her body. But her health, and the constant concern of strangers and family alike, left her no choice. Over just an hour she unspools the complicated truth of her weight – the traumas beneath it, the everyday humiliations, the relentless circular thoughts – all without self-pity or special pleading.

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What elevates the show is her control of pacing and tone. She leans into pain, then releases it with a joke; she brings the audience to the brink, then pulls them back. The result is both harrowing and hilarious, a performance that proves Spittle not only a fearless confessional comic but also a great storyteller.

Runs at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Saturday, September 20th