Fatboy

 

Fatboy is brazen, shocking, and grotesque. It is also hilarious. John Clancy’s reworking of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi is an absurdist satire which launches a fast-paced assault on American consumerism and over-consumption.

At the heart of the story is our anti-hero, King Fatboy, played by Del Pentecost. The vulgarity of Fatboy’s persona rivals that of even the most obscene and brutal characters who are gracing the stage at this year’s Fringe. Cursed with an incessant desire for food, Fatboy tortures, bribes and murders innocent people in order to fuel his gluttonous addiction.

So far, not your usual ingredients for side-splitting comical theatre. However, it is here where the ingenuity behind the production lies: Clancy employs comedy as an intricate theatrical tool, making the audience laugh at the cartoonish but savage world in which Fatboy rules, before coming to the gut-wrenching realisation that we are looking through the mirror at an exaggerated version of our own society.

Much of the comic genius of this production lies in the relationship between Fatboy and his nymphomaniac wife, Queen Fudgie, played to perfection by Nancy Walsh. The Punch and Judy bickering which occurs throughout the play waivers between obscene and ornate, deftly illustrating the grotesque and crude nature of Fatboy, while hinting at the dangers of a society in which excess, greed and corruption have become the sole moral values.

Fatboy works best as a shocking critique of modern society. However, the production is not for the faint-hearted and is designed to offend. After all, this is political satire at its best; brutal, eye-opening and comic.