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Mitchell & Webb Star Headlines LaBute’s Fat Pig

UPDATED, Mon 7 April 2007: Further creative and producer credits have now been added to this story. Updates are denoted in bold below.

Comedian Robert Webb (pictured), one half of the award-winning Mitchell and Webb double act, will make his West End debut in the UK premiere of Neil LaBute’s 2004 Off-Broadway comedy Fat Pig, which will have a limited season at Trafalgar Studios from 27 May to 6 September 2008 (previews from 16 May).

Cow. Slob. Pig. How many insults can you hear before you have to stand up and defend the woman you love? Tom (Webb) faces just that question when he falls for Helen, a bright, funny, sexy young woman who happens to be plus sized-and then some. Forced to explain his new relationship to his shallow friends, finally he comes to terms with his own preconceptions of the importance of conventional good looks.

With Mitchell, Webb is best known for the TV series Peep Show, The Mitchell and Webb Look and The Mitchell and Webb Situation (which he co-wrote and has appeared in), the film Magicians and the Apple Mackintosh advertising campaigns. He’s also been seen in the TV sitcoms Blessed and The Smoking Room and the film Confetti.

Webb will be joined in the Fat Pig cast by Ella Smith (as Helen) and Kris Marshall (Tom’s friend Carter), who worked together on the 2007 TV sitcom Sold. Marshall was also seen in the West End last year with Billie Piper in Treats and is well known for his other screen credits including My Family, Love Actually and the current series of BT adverts. The final member of the Fat Pig cast is Joanna Page (Jeannie), whose credits include What the Butler Saw, Aladdin and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on stage and Gavin and Stacy, Love Soup and Love Actually on screen.

American Neil LaBute was last represented in the West End by Some Girls, which starred Friends’ David Schwimmer in 2005, and a revival of The Shape of Things with Hollywood’s Alicia Witt in 2004. His plays The Mercy Seat, The Distance from Here, Bash and The Shape of Things have all had premiere runs at London’s Almeida Theatre, while This Is How It Goes was seen at the Donmar Warehouse in 2005. His films include In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, Possession, The Wicker Man and adaptations of The Shape of Things and Bash.

Fat Pig is directed by its author Neil LaBute and produced by Howard Panter for Ambassador Theatre Group and Broadway’s Barry Weissler, responsible for the current long-running revival of Chicago in both New York and London.

Now previewing at Trafalgar Studios 1 ahead of an 8 April opening, Warren Mitchell stars in Jeff Baron’s play Visiting Mr Green for a limited season to 10 May (See News, 25 Mar 2008).

- by Terri Paddock

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