Fleabag: The Original Play

by Phoebe Waller-Bridge

I was determined for the audience of the TV series to feel like they were having a personal relationship with Fleabag – hence the audience address – and the absolute ideal situation was that at the beginning you should feel she wants you there and by the end, that she wishes she hadn’t let you in. A feeling I imagine lots of people have felt after spilling it all out to a stranger.

The power of comedy is astonishing to me – how it can disarm an audience and leave them wide open and vulnerable. Ultimately, for the Fleabag audience, I wanted the drama of this woman’s story to leap into their open, laughing mouths and find its way deep into their hearts.

People are amazing, but… when will people realise… that people are all we got?

I have a horrible feeling I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, mannish-looking, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist. He looks at me. DAD. Well… You get all that from your mother.

BOO. And anyway, that’s the very reason they put rubbers on the ends of pencils. FLEABAG (to BOO). To fuck hamsters? BOO. No, because people make mistakes.