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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Alison Spittle: ‘I'm treated more like a human being now I've lost weight'
Alison Spittle is so competitive, she's had to apologise to people after board games. It's one of her worst traits, but she's also 'kind of proud of it' and knows that 'if you're not competitive, you don't win as much'. When she won the trophy on quiz show Pointless Celebrities , her family took pictures of her with it 'like it was the Sam Maguire'. An official BBC clip shows Spittle explaining she's a superfan, then screaming as one of her early-round answers is revealed to be pointless (the best outcome). Her elation is pure. But the episode, which aired in January, was filmed two years earlier, and Spittle now feels deeply protective of the person she was then, which is to say the same person, only 'significantly fatter'. READ MORE 'When Pointless came out, I watched it with people who were like: 'Oh my god, you are half the size you were then, look at you there.' And I'm looking at myself and I'm thinking, 'That was the happiest day of my life.'' What she regretted about her appearance on the show was that she and fellow comedian Fern Brady didn't win the elusive charity jackpot, not her size. Now the feelings elicited by this encounter with her past self are at the crux of Spittle's new stand-up show, BIG, which comes to the Dublin Fringe Festival in September after its current, month-long run in Edinburgh. 'I really don't like the idea of denouncing myself,' she says. 'I liked the person I was. I did, and I know I f**king did, and that's the annoying thing about losing weight. You're expected to denounce the person you were.' Being a 'public fat person' has taught her that there are others who will do the denouncing for her anyway and she's sad that poster rules at the Edinburgh fringe mean she couldn't use her original title: Fat Bitch. Alison Spittle was eight when her family settled in Ballymore, Co Westmeath. Photograph: Karla Gowlett 'If I have a bad interaction with a stranger, there's always a 'fat bitch' in it, and sometimes I see it as a trophy. Like, 'You've resorted to that, I've won'.' Whenever she went on television, the online comments would either be women – mostly thin women – declaring 'go girl, you're an inspiration', or they would be men harassing her by demanding to know what she was putting on her bread and accusing her of glorifying obesity simply by being on TV. 'When I got messages like that I would wake up over a toaster and be like, 'Little do they know, the more they attack, the bigger I become'.' In the show, she talks about how she started 'roaring and shouting' at one man who called her a fat bitch on a train, embarrassing him in front of other passengers. He hadn't been anticipating a confrontation. 'He thought he could just dismiss me with 'fat bitch',' she says. ''Fat bitch' is like 'goodbye' for a lot of people.' The worst part about losing weight is noticing how strangers are nicer to her: 'People treat me more like a human being now, which is messed up.' A lot of thin people who have a go at me about being fat, they think they're better than me She never wanted to change for the benefit of 'a**holes' who would only afford her dignity if she was a certain weight. 'People would keep telling me I was not conventionally attractive, and, like, it wasn't an interest of mine to be conventionally attractive. So that was kind of my process. My process? I don't know, I've been fat since I was eight years old.' She hung on to an 'element of defiance', she thinks, in order to reject the validation of the sexist, classist comedy culture she came of age in – one in which women were there to laugh, not make others laugh. 'That's what I loved about being on telly. Men would get angry with me because they weren't being titillated. Their erection wasn't being catered for on mainstream TV.' Recently she was crying on the couch to a fat female friend about the emotional fallout of weight loss. 'She goes to me, 'I hate to break it to you, Alison, but you're still fat'. And I said, 'Thank you'. I was delighted.' But she has lost a lot – with the aid of Mounjaro injections – since the trigger of a health crisis. She contracted cellulitis, which led to septicaemia, hospitalising her. 'Ireland's too small a country to have a women's weekly gossip magazine.' Photograph: Karla Gowlett 'The doctors were like, 'You do have to lose weight now'. And when you're attached to a drip and you're not able to move for weeks, you're like, 'Okay, fair enough, yeah'.' Our interview takes place over a pot of late-afternoon tea in the top-floor bar of the Aloft hotel in Dublin 8. It's her first caffeine on a day that has so far involved a missed flight, rebooking drama and two podcast recordings and will end with a gig at Iveagh Gardens. 'It's been a mad one, a mad one!' She's snacking on popcorn – 'which is funny' – but only because she's hungry. Before, her eating would go beyond hunger, beyond comfort; she would eat until she was uncomfortable. 'I would eat until I couldn't feel anything any more, because I didn't like feeling the way I felt about stuff, so the feeling of being overly full overtook everything else. It was like a comfort blanket, an anxiety blanket.' [ Alison Spittle's Spotify playlist: 'I love Kanye. He's an idiot, but I'm overwhelmed by his talent' Opens in new window ] Mounjaro has suppressed her appetite, meaning food is just fuel now, and she does sometimes miss the dopamine aspect. 'It's like doing your laundry, you're not eating for pleasure any more.' She has no time for celebrities who 'suddenly found willpower' just as medicines such as Ozempic and Mounjaro came to the fore. 'They go, 'Oh, it's the power of walking'. You're on the jabs, just say you're on the jabs,' she says. 'I tried losing weight without the jabs and couldn't do it, so I'm on the jabs, and if you are the same, you shouldn't feel ashamed. 'This whole idea of attaching morality to the size of your body absolutely disgusts me and now the idea of morality attached to the way you lose weight as well, it makes me so, so angry.' She knows she has a 'full-on addiction to food', and it's still there, unfixed, even if the self-injections are preventing her from acting upon it, but she had to sort her health out before it got any worse, she says, and she's scathing about people who insist weight should be lost the 'natural' way. 'They're just telling a fat person they should be in pain as punishment for being fat in the first place. Why do they want that off a person? It's very Calvinist or something. It's very Opus Dei, like whipping yourself on the back. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that for you. I don't you owe you pain.' BIG is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, September 16th-20th, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival. Photograph: Karla Gowlett It's not hard to understand why Spittle was compelled to devote a show to this subject yet is wary of the personal risk it carries. 'It is very vulnerable putting your wares on display and saying, 'Consume this, review this!' I'm very scared about that aspect,' she says. 'Even when I'm talking to you, I can feel myself getting animated. I can feel myself get emotional about stuff, and that's only with us chatting.' There are, she stresses, 'loads of jokes' in the show. Our conversation is joyously soundtracked by the bar's penchant for Noughties classics. Identifying them – which music fan and trivia-master Spittle can do within seconds – becomes her occasional side-quest as she tries to explain how she feels. Her sense is that stand-up is the 'one and only medium' where she can truly do that. People mistake her choice of 'loud' clothes for confidence, but she doesn't feel confident most of the time; she just likes colour. With stand-up, that's when she's at her most powerful. She has the microphone, she has the control. 'I can never get across how I feel about stuff, properly, unless it's through stand-up.' It would be mad to say I'm happy with my life, because I don't think anybody is happy with their life She has 'built a whole career', she tells me, out of being the funny friend. Born in London in June 1989, Spittle moved around a lot when she was kid, including a nine-month spell in Germany, as her father, a builder, sought work. It meant she was never the 'established friend' in a friend group, which prompted the discovery that making people laugh was the quickest way to befriend them. 'A lot of thin people who have a go at me about being fat, they think they're better than me, but the thing is I had to develop a personality when I was younger. 'They're f**ked! They have absolutely nothing now. And I feel sorry for them, because there's going to be so many fat people getting thinner, they won't know what to do with themselves.' She was eight when her family – she has four siblings – settled in Ballymore, Co Westmeath, where there was 'a definite pecking order' on her council estate. Being 'fat and eccentric' was her way of removing herself from it. To be 'valuable', she became 'the nice one, the people-pleaser'. She felt she didn't have the option of any other identity. [ 'My motto for life is, be sound' Opens in new window ] She 'fecked up' her Leaving Cert, but this turned out to be serendipitous. During a media course at Ballyfermot College she did work experience at Athlone-based iRadio, where comedian Bernard O'Shea was DJing. He told her she should try stand-up and booked her a gig, giving her two weeks to prepare. 'He said do your funniest joke at the start, so people trust you, and do your second-funniest joke at the end, so that's what I did, and I loved it. I had this massive rush coming off stage. I had so much adrenaline, I felt like I was in love.' 'So I moved to Dublin then, and ... Aw, I love this song! Sorry. It's Nelly Furtado, Turn Off the Light!' In Dublin, not far from the Noughties-loving bar where we meet, Spittle rented a box room for a cheap rent from a non-gouging landlord, making it possible for her to live in the city while she performed stand-up and wrote plays. After encouragement from a producer who saw her at the International Bar, she and her boyfriend, Simon Mulholland, wrote a script for what became Nowhere Fast , a sitcom that aired for one season on RTÉ in 2017. 'I was a baba. A little baba. I had people coming up saying, 'Oh my god, you're making this and you're this age'. When you're young, you don't realise that you're young. Nobody's going to say that to me now!' In 2018 she and Mulholland moved to London, from where she has developed her stand-up career and scratched her old radio itch through podcasting. A BBC-commissioned podcast, Wheel of Misfortune – she presented it first with 'best pal' Brady, then with 'icon' Kerry Katona – means people in the UK sometimes recognise her when they hear her voice. It's over now, but she has a new one called Magazine Party, where she and co-host Poppy Hillstead dissect the wild stories contained in That's Life!-style magazines and compile their own 'Women's Bleakly'. 'Ireland's too small a country to have a women's weekly gossip magazine. You'd read a story that goes, 'I slept with the ghost of my husband,' and you'd be like, 'That's Mary from down the road, I knew that'.' [ Alison Spittle's Christmas: I'll explode if I get another bath bomb Opens in new window ] She would 'totally love' to emulate Brady and star in a series of Channel 4's comedy gameshow Taskmaster – 'I would kick a child to get on Taskmaster' – but Pointless Celebrities hasn't been the only TV outlet for her competitive spirit. She also flew to Glasgow to film five episodes of Richard Osman's House of Games in one day. 'I fell down the stairs at one point, out of excitement, and made my shin bleed. We had to pause filming for 10 minutes while we found another pair of tights for me.' Swooning reviews for BIG have since poured in, but as we speak she's still a week away from the start of Edinburgh and so conscious of her desire to do her show justice, she's waking up every morning with a pain in her chest telling her to get out her Post-it notes and work on finessing it. [ Women in comedy: 'We're not allowed to be okay... It has to be good' Opens in new window ] 'My problem is structure. I have several bits of the puzzle that I'm still working out now, and I'm moving house as well, so it's ... Dido, Thank You.' We listen to the mildly depressive first verse of the singer's 2000 hit. 'Very chill. Very pre-September 11th, an innocent time,' is her verdict. She wasn't 'a learned scholar of the craft' of stand-up. Her approach used to be 'just be as funny as possible with what you can remember'. Being around other comedians, and their love for the art of comedy, has inspired her to distil what she wants to say into a narrative and hone her onstage persona. 'My persona is I am becoming less of a people-pleaser, and I think I need to become even less people-pleasey, because it doesn't do my comedy any favours. Likeability can only get you so far.' I compliment her on a photo shoot for BIG in which her head emerges from a triangular cloud of multicoloured netting. She made it herself by ripping apart shower puffs and attaching them to a bridal petticoat using a stapler and hot glue. 'There is a part of me that just wishes everyone was like a floating head,' she says. She sings along to Kids by MGMT as she checks what time she's meant to be at Iveagh Gardens, then we talk more about her show – her walk-on playlist will be entirely women artists who have been labelled fat – before leaving the bar. The hotel wasn't open in her Dublin 8 days, though as we look down Mill Street, she gets a nostalgic thrill when she sees one stretch of wall is still home to the painted outline of a bear asking for a hug. 'It would be mad to say I'm happy with my life, because I don't think anybody is happy with their life,' she had said in the bar. 'But I really like the turns my life has taken. I couldn't really imagine it happening before.' Alison Spittle's show BIG is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, September 16th-20th, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2025. Details at .
Metro
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
TV star's show detailing childhood molestation is a must-see for all fat people
Alison Spittle – star of Pointless Celebrities, Richard Osman's House of Games and Celebrity Googlebox – has an Edinburgh Fringe show that's a must-see for all fat people. The Irish comic, a much-loved Guilty Feminist regular and Wheel of Misfortune co-host with Kerry Katona, is laying herself bare on stage at this year's arts festival. BIG is a moving – yet hilarious – show about how being molested as a child triggered an eating disorder, which left Alison unable to go on rollercoasters, shuffling along train aisles, and eventually fighting for her life. The 39-year-old's show is charming, albeit with sleeve-clutching visceral descriptions of a pus bucket underneath her swollen leg on the day she almost died. It's also undeniably rib-tickling and punchy, and Alison's one-liners are unmatched. Some personal favourites include: Thorpe Park is the Zara of entertainment – fat people are welcome to watch, but not partake; unlike Alison, her boyfriend is middle class so he actually gets to live out his morals; and that age-old question… Am I nice, or just fat? The hour is a big middle finger up to a TV show (with a teenage boy demographic) which didn't cast her because – as an email not intended for her revealed – 'no one wants to f**k Alison Spittle'. Well, Alison Spittle f**ks. A lot. She also didn't go on Mounjaro and lose the weight of an XL Bully because of this. The email motivated her to get on TV, not to lose weight. But one moment that did change everything was when Alison ended up in hospital, close to death with sepsis, sending friends deranged voicenotes to assure them she was okay (she wasn't). She was also struggling with sleep apnea and was diabetic due to her weight, gained through years of burying trauma. In a world where 'body positivity' is fat's only buzzword, Alison's show takes an important look at why she became fat in the first place. She ignites empathy and laughter – not sympathy and tilted head nods – from an audience hanging on her every anecdote. Alison perhaps doesn't realise how good she is. At points, she lost her train of thought (a comedian with ADHD, shock), and got flustered before returning to the train tracks, which honestly, I could stay on with her for hours. This show is not just about being fat, though. It's about men preying on working-class estate children, molesting them while walking past their village kid peers. More Trending It's an expertly structured piece about trauma, healing, and how being fat in a world that hates fat people is ultimately, incredibly tiring. Never mind the man who told Alison to sit down on a train – he can go to stranger hell. Alison is about to take up more space than she's ever done before. Alison Spittle: BIG is on at 4.45 in the Monkey Barrel 1 throughout August at the Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets here. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: 'I'm naked, peeing, and tattooed on stage every night – but it's no biggy' MORE: Baby Reindeer and Fleabag team's next show is nothing I expected MORE: I watched a woman orgasm on stage and it wasn't even awkward
Scotsman
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Alison Spittle brings new solo show 'Big' to Edinburgh Fringe
Irish comedian and writer Alison Spittle is set to return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer with her brand-new solo show 'Big', running at Monkey Barrel 1 from the 29th of July to the 24th of August. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Known for her work on stage, screen and radio, Spittle's latest hour takes a bold and candid look at body image, self-worth and identity, drawing on a turbulent and transformative year in her life. After a chance encounter on a train triggered a serious health scare, Spittle began an unexpected weight-loss journey—now the subject of this heartfelt and hilarious new show. Big explores what happens when the world treats you differently because of your body, and whether changing yourself can ever really be the answer. Spittle reflects on her experiences as a working-class fat girl trying to fit into a middle-class, mid-sized world. With her trademark mix of honesty and humour, she asks how much of ourselves we're willing to lose in order to feel accepted—and whether it's possible to love who you were as much as who you're becoming. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Audiences can expect sharp, relatable storytelling as Spittle navigates everything from missing trains to fitting on rollercoasters, alongside moments of emotional insight drawn from a year that changed everything. Alison Spittle (c) Matt Stronge A familiar face from Pointless Celebrities, Richard Osman's House of Games, and Celebrity Gogglebox, Alison is also the co-creator of the popular BBC Sounds podcast Wheel of Misfortune, and has written and starred in her own sitcom Nowhere Fast. Big marks her highly anticipated return to the Fringe following two successful back-to-back runs with her previous shows Wet and Soup. Alison Spittle: Big runs at Monkey Barrel 1 from 29th July to 24th August (not 12th) at 4.45pm.
The Guardian
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
TV tonight: the BBC opens a Billy Joel treasure trove
8.40pm, BBC TwoIt's basically a Billy Joel night for megafans to get lost in on BBC Two, with his 100th show at Madison Square Garden last year and a vintage recording from 1978 airing later in the evening. But first: a warm-up with these archive clips of Joel performing over the years, with the likes of Uptown Girl, Piano Man and Just the Way You Are, along with interviews and appearances. Hollie Richardson 7pm, BBC Three What a series ender – with Ncuti Gatwa saying goodbye to the Tardis and Billie Piper making a grand return. But for Whovians in need of more, the two stars join David Tennant and Karen Gillan in this documentary to celebrate the magic of making the Whoniverse come to life in Wales. HR 8.20pm, ITV1If you thought booking eight famous people for each edition of Pointless Celebrities was a big job, how about this? The charity version of Lee Mack's addictively unpredictable lateral-thinking quiz starts with 100 sports stars competing to see who's the smartest. Can anyone win £100,000 for a good cause? Jack Seale 9pm, BBC Four'In five days, we will go back to being an investigation team. But we will make the most of those five days.' Kramer and her exhausted squad hit day 100 of the Stefanie Berghoff investigation in the final double bill of the German true-crime drama. Then a breakthrough links the murder weapon to a specific truck. Ali Catterall 9.30pm, BBC OneIt's time for creepy Mr Finch to get his comeuppance – that is, if we don't count the breadboard incident. So Sophie and Veronika concoct a plan to prove their theory about Enigma's parentage. The annual family party could provide the perfect cover for this ruse. There's certainly enough underlying tension to keep everyone distracted. Ellen E Jones 10.30pm, ITV1We finally see things from dodgy Joe's perspective in this dating-app-disaster drama. Surprise, surprise: he's been telling a few fibs, including another girlfriend who he's in couples counselling with, and a wife for whom he refuses to sign divorce papers. HR Piggy (Carlota Pereda, 2022), midnight, Film4 Small-town Spanish teenager Sara (Laura Galán) is nicknamed 'Cerdita' (Piggy) by her mocking peers, being overweight and the daughter of the local butcher. Their bullying reaches a peak at the outdoor swimming pool but, fatefully for them, a stranger (Richard Holmes) witnesses it and makes them pay. Carlota Pereda's smart horror thriller teases a common cause – even a twisted desire – between Sara and the malevolent mystery man as kids go missing, the community descends into panic and Sara painfully discovers her inner fighter. Simon Wardell Women's Challenge Cup Rugby League: St Helens v Wigan Warriors, 11.15am, BBC TwoThe final at Wembley. Followed by the men's final, Warrington v Hull KR, at 2pm on BBC One. Racing: The Derby, 12.45pm, ITV1At Epsom, with the Derby at 3.30pm. Tennis: French Open, 2pm, TNT Sports 1The women's singles final. The men's final is on Sun at 2pm. Premiership Rugby Union: Leicester Tigers v Sale Sharks, 2.45pm, TNT Sports 2The second semi-final. Men's World Cup Football: Andorra v England, 4.15pm, ITV1Harry Kane captains the visitors in a qualifier in Barcelona, followed by a friendly in Nottingham against Senegal on Tue, 7pm, ITV1. Plus on Monday, Liechtenstein v Scotland is at 4.45pm on BBC Two; Belgium v Wales at 7.30pm on BBC One.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pointless Celebrities star says breaking world record made 'boring TV'
Pointless Celebrities contestant Georgie Barrat has recalled breaking a world record in VR. Speaking to the format's long-running host Alexander Armstrong on Saturday, 19 April, the 35-year-old explained how her 26.5-hour Minecraft marathon didn't make for compelling TV material. Apparently, a producer on The Gadget Show (which Barrat has co-presented since 2017) even went as far as to label it "the most boring bit of television" the programme had ever created. "Fabulous to have you here," Armstrong told Barrat before her first attempt at Pointless. "Now you present The Gadget Show; I would like to know what's the gadget that we should all have?" She replied: "Well I love virtual reality. [VR headsets] are really, really good fun," before opening up about clinching a recognised world record. Read more: Richard Osman reveals he wasn't paid for the first four series of Pointless Richard Osman says Queen was 'very competitive and funny' when she played Pointless Richard Osman reveals Pointless swaps offensive answers for acceptable ones "So you're looking at the person that's been in VR the longest playing one VR game. "I played Minecraft for 26 and a half hours straight! Lucky I don't get sick, some people feel quite nauseous when they're in VR for too long," Barrat continued. "But I did it for The Gadget Show and at the end the producer said to me: 'That's the most boring bit of television we've ever made. I've got 26 and a half hours of footage of you just sort of sat in the corner with the VR headset on...' I'm like, 'I had a good time!' I built a lot of stuff in Minecraft in that time." Launched by Swedish developer Mojang Studios in 2011, Minecraft has gone on to become the bestselling video game of all-time, shipping over 300 million copies as of last year. Players spend their time exploring a "procedurally generated, three-dimensional" landscape, where they're supposed to unearth and extract raw materials, fashion tools, and build structures and machines in voxel form. Minecraft offers gamers two primary modes (survival mode and creative mode), plus three others (spectator mode, adventure mode and hardcore mode). Such is the franchise's behemoth status, Hollywood released a live-action adaptation titled A Minecraft Movie this month, starring Jack Black, Jason Momoa and Peacemaker's Danielle Brooks. At the time of writing, its box office haul has already soared past $662 million. Pointless Celebrities airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
