Packed with big laughs and biting humour, Fat Joke is willing to go there, at the Anvil Theatre January 31 to February 2

Part illustrated lecture, part standup comedy, Cheyenne Rouleau’s show rips into fat shaming

By Janet Smith

Fat Joke, starring Cheyenne Rouleau. Photo by Jesse Ray

Neworld Theatre’s Fat Joke is at the Anvil Theatre from January 31 to February 2

THEATRE SCHOOLS, THE BMI, and casting auditions: nothing is out of bounds in Cheyenne Rouleau’s enjoyable and thought-provoking Fat Joke, a show that flips easily between sharp laughs and darker reflections.

If you missed the Cultch premiere of this one-person mix of mashup of standup comedy, theatrical monologue, and illustrated TED X Talk (redubbed here “TEDXXXXL Talk”), you’re in luck: it’s returning for a brief run at the Anvil Theatre in New Westminster. And after seeing it, you might not see issues around weight and fatphobia ever in the same way again. (You can read Stir’s review of it here.)

Bouncing between such pop-culture touchstones as Winnie the Pooh, Mr. Snuffleupagus, the Hamburglar, and Jared from Subway, Rouleau also digs into some damning research and some brutally honest anecdotes—think cringe-inducing casting calls and the trauma of being picked last in gym class.

A note that Rouleau and her team are part of a growing movement using the word “fat” as a simple descriptive, akin to adjectives like “short” or “tall”; it’s becoming a term of political protest that fights against the medicalization of fatness as a disease.

And political this show is—but never dauntingly so. Some of the biggest laughs involve pun counters, as well as elaborate flow charts that explain how to react to problematic jokes. They’re hilarious, but also a nod to how uncomfortable we are about talking about this subject matter—and how revolutionary Rouleau’s show actually is.  

Fat Joke, starring Cheyenne Rouleau. Photo by Jesse Ray

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