Not Just A Fleabag

Whether in front of the camera, up on stage or behind the scenes writing and producing, Phoebe Waller-Bridge turns everything she touches to gold. We can’t get enough of TV’s most daring new darling.

- Caroline Petersen

It’s hard to describe Fleabag to someone who hasn’t seen it. The Guardian calls it ‘a hilarious sitcom about terrible people and broken lives’; the New York Times, ‘a sex comedy that is secretly a tragedy’. And in Late Show host Stephen Colbert’s opinion, it’s ‘the only perfect television show ever made’.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge writes about grief, sex and self-loathing, but somehow it’s really funny. You’re laughing and following along, then bam – right when you least expect it, she lands an emotional gut-punch. ‘You’re not braced for the impact, and it’s a killer,’ says Vicky Jones, the director of Fleabag (the stage version).

Last year, Phoebe and Fleabag won six Emmys, including Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Comedy Series. ‘I don’t think any of us could have imagined a night like that,’ she says. ‘It was full of love, and madness and vodka gimlets.’

Through most of her 20s, Phoebe struggled to land a job. ‘I went to RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] thinking I was quite a good actor and came out thinking I was appalling,’ she says. Stuck and unemployed, she started writing her own scripts, with one goal in mind: to play a character she could really relate to. Inspired by the cynicism she felt in her 20s, a touch of female rage and her childhood nickname, her one-woman show, Fleabag, was born.