Comedian Mo Gilligan explores the reality of the industry
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
Every year, 78 billion chickens are killed to satisfy the world’s appetite for the meat, and Mo Gilligan has certainly played his part in fuelling that in the past. The comedian has been a keen consumer of the protein-rich food in all its incarnations – roasted, curried, jerked – but in particular the fried variety and, for this documentary, he embarks on a Supersize Me-style experiment by spending 28 days eating nothing but fried chicken.
The doctor he visits beforehand says she doesn’t ‘want to scare him’ about the potential consequences of doing this but, as the film goes on, the subject isn’t so much about the impact on his waistline or internal organs. The focus becomes the chicken industry itself – the ‘big chicken’ of the title – with Mo heading to the US to explore the conditions in which they are farmed, both for the doomed birds and for the workers that process them. Gilligan compares the latter experience to ‘modern-day slavery’. Later, he puts his investigative journalist hat on to embark on a similar mission in the UK, and all this while chewing his way through three meals of fried chicken every day.
That side of the documentary will certainly stay with you long after watching the film while the impact on Gilligan himself, both physically and mentally – revealed when he visits the doctor at the end – features some alarming news. (96 minutes)
