Nicola Couglan who plays Clare in Derry Girls
Nicola (31), who is originally from Galway, plays Clare in the hit Channel 4 comedy which wrapped its first series in February.
She is currently starring in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at Donmar Warehouse and previously appeared on stage in Jess and Joe Forever at the Orange Tree Theatre.
Both shows were reviewed by Philip Fisher for the British Theatre Guide, an independent website featuring reviews, news and podcasts.
In both reviews he made reference to Nicola’s weight and she shared the excerpts with her 19,000 followers on Twitter.
Nicola tweeted: “Hi @BritTheatreGuid, for the second time your reviewer Philip Fisher has come to see a show I’m in, and as part of reviewing the show he has also reviewed my body.
“How can you continue to support this?
In another tweet she said: “I was in a show called Jess and Joe Forever @traversetheatre last August which he came to see and his opening sentence was “Jess is a fat girl”
“My weight has no relevance to either the performance I gave in that or in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”
Nicola also took issue with his description of a rape scene from another play, before saying she would review his body even though it has “no relevance” to his job, and stating that he was not welcome to review any of her work in future.
Replying to Nicola, Philip Fisher said: “I know you are a theatre reviewer and your body had no relevance to your job
Derry Girls writer Lisa McGee retweeted Nicola’s first tweet, with the caption, “This is not acceptable”.
Another London theatre reviewer suggested Fisher is “referring to a character in the play and the cruel jibes she receives, not maligning the actor”.
However, Nicola added, “There’s no reference to the characters weight at any point in the script, this was targeted to me, and not for the first time.”
Following Nicola’s comments, the British Theatre Guide responded on Twitter: “Nicola, we apologise unreservedly for the offence caused by the wording of this review.
“The offending words have been removed. While the reviewer may not have intended to offend, he accepts that it is not acceptable to use such descriptions in a review and not BTG policy.
Nicola replied: “I would call this a bit of a tepid apology but I will accept if going forward you realise why it was so offensive and never review another woman’s body’s again.
“Also this is the second time Philip Fisher has done this to me, I’ll take it that this is a belated apology for both.
“Also @BritTheatreGuid if you really want to do better in the future, please look at hiring some women on your editorial staff.
“They are the people who can tell you how you’ve managed to get it so badly wrong pic.”
Tags: