NEWS: Sofie Hagen @ ARC/Northern Stage

When was the last time you heard a fat joke? Speaking as your local friendly fat culture journo who has been at the receiving end of such “humour,” the worst is probably, “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass.” First of all, it’s rude. Secondly, can we stick to one form of body policing at a time please? Sofie Hagen doesn’t tell fat jokes, even if the title of her stand-up show (which drops in to Stockton’s ARC on Friday 16^th September and later at Northern Stage on Tuesday 11^th October) would imply otherwise: she tells jokes, and she is fat. And when she’s not telling jokes, Hagen is taking her quest to reclaim the F word seriously. How wild is it to open up a ticket page for a comedy show and be greeted with “fat accessibility information” that gives her fellow fat folks seat dimensions? Now, we can know exactly how uncomfortable we’ll be for the duration of a show, or if we can avoid the dreaded armrest digging into fleshy thighs for 90 minutes.

Contrary to popular belief, fat people are just people who enjoy many of the same things as non-fat people, and we’d really appreciate a night out at a comedy show without being the butt of any jokes – even if our posteriors look like they can take it.

Sofie Hagen performs at ARC, Stockton on Friday 16^th September and Northern Stage, Newcastle on Tuesday 11^th October.