Southbank Centre's Book Podcast: Phoebe Waller-Bridge on Fleabag: The Scriptures

Now, six years on, that character has grown into a full-on phenomenon, with a sell-out runs in London’s West End and off-Broadway, and two critically acclaimed award-winning television series.

November 2019 saw the release of Fleabag: The Scriptures, which brings together the complete filming scripts of the show’s two series, annotated with stage directions, and new writing from Waller-Bridge. To celebrate this release, Waller-Bridge joined host of The Guilty Feminist, Deborah Frances-White, on stage at Southbank Centre to discuss about all things Fleabag.

In this interesting and frank conversation, the pair explore how the camera came to represent outside pressure to deliver a performance; combatting loneliness by trying to find connections through sex and family relationships, and how the character of the priest became ‘Hot Priest’. Waller-Bridge also explains how Fleabag evolved from a ten minute monologue written to try and make her friend laugh and cry, and how one drunk woman’s feedback propelled it to the current phenomenon it is.

“I knew I wanted the second series to be about hope when the first was about cynicism… and if the first series was all about casual sex, I wanted the second to be about the power of a single kiss”

Phoebe Waller-Bridge on Fleabag