A witty, caustic and nostalgic tale of one woman’s quest to become her heroine; Hattie Jacques This May, Proteus Theatre Company will bring their one-woman show Becoming Hattie to the West End for a 5 day residency London’s Leicester Square Theatre from 24th to 28th May 2016. The play celebrates the unique talents of a much-loved comedy icon of stage and screen, combined with a funny and edgy ‘calling out’ of all the obstacles and lazy stereotyping of larger women by the media.

It’s 1974 and 8-year old Jo is snuggled up on the settee idly glancing at the telly when there, on the screen, is a woman unlike anyone Jo has ever seen on TV. Jo knows, in that moment, the woman before her is uniquely like the woman she herself will become.

That woman is Hattie Jacques.

Forty years later, and Jo has followed Hattie’s footsteps; she too is an actress, but why does she only get cast as the nurse, never the surgeon? Why is she too fat to play Lady Macbeth? Why does she have a cupboard full of tabards? Could it be that nothing changed for women like Jo since Hattie did Carry On?

The show has been delighting and challenging audiences nationwide with an impassioned performance from its sole actor, Ashley Christmas:

‘Ashley was a tour de force – funny, moving and truly memorable’ Audience member

Mary Swan, Artistic Director from Proteus says:

“My vision for the piece was to explore Hattie from a feminist perspective, using her life and career as a mechanism for exploring contemporary attitudes toward women’s bodies and the lack of body shape diversity amongst the women we are presented with on stage and screen.

In Susie Orbach’s book, Fat is a Feminist Issue written in 1978 she says: “To be fat means to be excluded from contemporary mass culture”

If our media continues to ignore and exclude larger women from our screens then nothing will have changed since 1978.”

Becoming Hattie is written by Mhairi Grealis, who adds: “I was immediately intrigued by the idea of looking not only at the wonderful Hattie Jacques but what it means to be a woman in the acting industry today”

Whilst addressing contemporary issues around body image, sexism and sizeism, Becoming Hattie is full of humour and charm and is sure to delight fans of Hattie’s most well-known work simultaneously lifting the lid on the life of the woman off-screen.

‘This is an incredibly powerful and thought-provoking show. It has the ability to both entertain and challenge the audience…a must-see show” Alton Herald

Thoughtful, funny, warm and nostalgic, this one-woman show is an affectionate look at the life and career of the remarkable Hattie Jacques and a witty, caustic look at modern life in show business and its cultural attitudes toward larger women.

Becoming Hattie will continue to tour nationally until 2nd July 2016. The full tour schedule can be found at www.proteustheatre.com.

For more information visit the dedicated Becoming Hattie website: www.HattieShow.co.uk