If you have an appetite for the grotesque, try THE WHALE by Samuel D. Hunter, a tale of morbid obesity and Morrison style evangelism.

In a squalid apartment in Idaho with drab dabs of nautical décor – a fish tank, a painting of a lighthouse, louvre blinds redolent of a ship’s sails or fish gills – English tutor, Charlie, is slowly eating himself to death.

Suicide by stuffing is his response to the death of his lover, Alan, and Alan’s sister, Liz, pops in from time to time to aid and abet his catastrophic calorie intake.

Moribund and housebound, Charlie makes money by mentoring students online. The study of ‘Moby Dick’ takes a prominent focus, specifically one essay that seems to have resuscitative power.

Another whale story, the Biblical one of Jonah, is also prominent, conjured by an impromptu visit of a nineteen year old missionary, who interrupts Charlie while masturbating to movie dick.

Busted wanking notwithstanding, evangelical minions and ministries is somewhat of a bête noire to Charlie and of Liz also, as they both blame the institution for being implicit in Alan’s death, shaming and shunning him for being gay.

Not so impromptu is the visit from Ellie, Charlie’s daughter. After an estrangement of more than a decade, she has tracked him down in a thinly veiled attempt at a brittle reconciliation.

In the wake of this, Mary, Charlie’s ex-wife and mother to Ellie, enters the scene, making for a tidy final farewell as the beached whale prepares to blow his last.

Brendan Fraser, fitted out in an unflattering fat suit, does an admirable job as the morbidly obese Charlie, grasping the posture and the short, shallow gasping of the grossly corpulent, negotiating the complex contradiction of the jolly fat man who harbours a dietary death wish.

Hong Chau, so bloody marvellous in the ‘The Menu’, similarly has to navigate the contradictory character of Lizzie, the sister of his deceased lover and now his domestic, who strives to keep him alive whilst simultaneously feeding him foods that will prove fatal, either by consumption or by choking. Her emotional conflict is well compassed.

Sadie Sink as the daughter, Ellie, is quite the attitude of insolent youth, a fearless ferocity masking a fragility, a forced bravado a veneer to a brittle soul, and adopts the surly facade of a face the facsimile of a slapped arse.

Ty Simpkins, at first the epitome of the gormless missionary, reveals a genuine earnestness that eschews the shallow evangelism of his church.

Samantha Morton as Mary, Charlie’s ex and mother of Ellie, comes late in the play but gives a scene stealing, heartbreaking performance, of a woman spurned of success as spouse and parent, finding validity in vodka. There’s a seething, shaking anger on view here, the kind that comes from still caring although one is clearly care worn.

The screenplay, like its protagonist, is overweight, and the production is plagued by a barrage of blackouts. So too the soundtrack – confused, unclear and cliched.

One or two too many vignettes slow its metabolic rate. But it largely swims thanks to a committed cast who give big. Like Minnie the Moocher’s heart. Big as a whale.