Fleabag began as a ten-minute monologue written for a short-form storytelling night at the Leicester Square Theatre in London, put together by a fellow fringe theatre hustler at the time, Deborah Frances-White. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the crowd there and the ambition of our producer Francesca Moody we soon had a spot at the Underbelly venue in Edinburgh in August. We raised four thousand pounds on Kickstarter and off we went. A month later we were standing in our living-rooms with our hair tousled and the wrong shoes on, clutching a Fringe First and wondering if the whole thing was just a crowd-funded acid-trip. We’d sold out, had great reviews, confirmed a slot at the Soho Theatre and the BBC had asked me to write a pilot. It took me just under a year to crack the adaptation. We nearly lost the commission because it took so long. But my producers Jack and Harry Williams fought for it and it became a Comedy Feed on BBC3.
These scripts are a result of the most important collaborations of my life and have, in some way, proven to me that your work is only as strong as the people in your team and the gin in your tonic. These two series came about as a result of many late nights, many doubts, and the constant support, rallying, inspiration and faith of a group of people who have grown to feel like family.
Director and dramaturg of the stage show, script editor for Series One, eternal touchstone.
There’s a scene in series one where Fleabag is annoyed with herself and Boo dresses up in Fleabag’s clothes and forces her to ‘have a go at herself’. That was Vicky Jones in my living room, in my coat, in my stupid hat, in 2014.
I left drama school with no job and little confidence, but with the enduring, insatiable need to find ways to make work. Meeting Vicky changed everything. She was a director also on the fringes of the industry trying to make her way, and with the power of two we were galvanised to actually step out and make something ourselves. We created our theatre company, DryWrite , and put up monthly new writing nights in a pub in East London. After some time, Vicky and I encouraged (forced) each other to write. With Vicky’s faith I felt totally unafraid. My writing became very focused. I just wanted to make her laugh, make her cry, make her gasp. When I was asked to write a monologue for the London Story Festival, I applied the same focus. Vicky read the early draft, helped me hone it, sat front and centre at the show, cheered the loudest, and the rest is Fleabag’s history. Her insight, emotional rigour, dogged instinct for the truth and ability to see what you are trying to write before you know yourself defined Fleabag’s story.
Vicky helped me develop the play from the very first word, to the opening night, to the first series of the TV show. It would not exist without her. Beyond her incredible talent as a director and writer, she is the kind of friend people write storybooks about. She was my inspiration for Boo, my reason for writing and my soft-landing when I failed. Knowing she was there made me take bigger risks because I knew if it went tits-up there would be a bottle of wine and a healthy ‘AAAH FUCKIT’ before we jumped into the next thing.
When trying to crack the pilot episode, Vicky filmed me on her phone as I walked around my kitchen. I was making tea and experimenting talking to the camera. After five minutes she pulled the phone down and grinned: ‘It works.’
Director
First interview with Harry:
PHOEBE (28ish, female)
So, what do you make of Fleabag?
HARRY (49ish, male)
Oh, for God’s sake darling I AM Fleabag!
Harry is the most profoundly empathetic person I have ever met. He treats every character as if they are the main part and he was right at the heart of the writing process. He is my ‘Truth Hound’! He is only interested in what is going on deep inside the characters, their conflicts, their desires. He gave me language for what I otherwise couldn’t articulate.
During the first season he taught me about ‘Visual Sentences’. I didn’t know how to remind the audience of what happened to Boo and I didn’t want Fleabag to have to explain it more than once as it’s not something she would ever talk about to anyone, other than drunkenly to cab drivers she doesn’t know the middle of the night. Harry described the image of Boo standing across the street with cars zooming past her. He said that was all we needed. A new part of my brain opened up. That was the way into Fleabag’s pain. She has such a formidable armour of wit and self-awareness, but drop that in at any point – her laughing at a party, her during sex, her walking down the street feeling ‘great’ – and we’d know that she isn’t OK. That she is still haunted. It was a huge step in my learning about writing for the screen and one of many, many lessons from Harry.
Harry empowers people. He allowed me my vision. He listened to every idea I had, however ludicrous or wrong, and fought back only when he felt something didn’t feel true. Even though I was twenty-eight and had next-to-no experience, and he was a BAFTA winning, hasn’t-stopped-working TV director, I never felt patronised. I spent many hours in his kitchen – more wine – talking out the twists and turns of the characters. We’d wrestle over what he needed to be able to tell the story visually to match what I had already had in my head. He can be moved to tears by a character. He’s the best person to pitch an idea to. He will laugh until he cries if it’s funny, furrow his brow and shake his head if it’s terrible and shed tears if it’s moving.
While writing the second series, I lost faith in it so many times. I really felt Fleabag’s story had ended and that we had already seen and heard the most interesting thing about this woman. Harry was adamant that I was wrong. ‘If she has something else to learn, then we have more story to tell’. Harry was convinced that the greatest love story we had to tell was that between Fleabag and herself. I shuddered at the sentimentality of it, but I knew it was true.
Story producer , Series Two
Jenny is my lifeline. She was the story producer on Fleabag Two . We met and worked together on Killing Eve and it was a life-changing partnership. I need to talk things out. A LOT. When I spoke to Jenny, it felt like my brain was expanding. Whether we were talking about hair dye or story arcs, it all ended up in the show one way or another.
Jenny was with me every step of the way writing Series Two. We would sit in the office all day putting up post-its of all the ideas I’d had over the last few years. We’d go for lunch, go for dinner, go to Cornwall, go to LA, always talking. I HATE showing a first draft to anyone and I’m incredibly last-minute because of it. But I would show Jenny everything. She is the reason this series is so good. I can’t imagine working on a show without her brain, her wit, her heart and her hornet-infested house.
Seconds after we wrapped the final scene of Series Two we were in the kitchen at ‘Dad’s’ house. Everyone quietly left me and Jenny alone for a moment. We just sat in a daze staring at each other. We did it. We know it’s only a TV show, but it’s what we had been pouring our hearts into for endless days and nights for months. Up until that day, for us it had been everything. We cried and laughed and shook hands, agreeing to always dig that deep and push that hard on everything else we do together.
Claire
Sian and I have known each other since drama school. She was as extraordinary then as she is now. I value her opinion and talent deeply. She was relentlessly supportive of my writing, attending every short writing night, acting in anything I begged her to be a part of. She played a sort of proto-type Claire in a short play I wrote years before Fleabag . Once I saw her embody that character I just wanted to write and write for her. I still do. Giving Sian more to do was one of the main incentives to come back for the second series. I just wanted to see her really get her teeth in to something. Knowing how limitless her range is inspired so much of Claire’s emotional journey. I talked Sian through all the ideas before each series to gauge how it landed and would be twitching with anticipation for her reaction to each script. She’s been a loyal, supportive friend and collaborator and has delivered the most moving portrait of Claire I could have imagined. Extraordinarily, we never really had to talk ‘about’ Claire. Sian just knew who she was. She’s an exquisite actress and has an instinct for story that I relied on often in my wobbly moments. There were a few times I tried to change the lines on set, and she would quietly stop me. ‘It’s good. Stop it.’
Father William
I spoke to a few priests while researching the show, but the conversations with Father William impacted me far beyond character research. He spoke candidly about the struggles and rewards of giving one’s life to a faith. We had long meandering conversations covering topics from the mundane to the controversial, which all fed their way into the fabric of the second series in one way or another. He was deeply cultured and met every challenging question with great humour, consideration and a brilliant biblical reference. I was most interested in, if a little shy to ask about, his experience with celibacy. He spoke eloquently about the pull between the loneliness, and the freedom of it, at one heart-stopping moment describing it as a ‘wound’. He was a great influence on the character. Many of the Priest’s lines were inspired by things Father William had said.
The Cast
This cast was a goddam gift. Even though the scripts were ‘completed’, there were always changes on set. Bill Paterson and Fiona Shaw had scenes reworked minutes before we filmed it, Olivia Colman often had new lines whispered to her mid-scene and Andrew and I once performed a scene I hadn’t even had time to write down! Every member of the cast faced it with it with kindness and chutzpah, but no-one was thrown more of a curveball than Brett Gelman. In honour of all of them having to occasionally wing it last minute, I’m going to tell his story.
While sitting with Brett in the car on the way to his climactic final scene I asked him to read out the speech from the script. He did. Something wasn’t right. I knew I had to rewrite it, but we only had eleven minutes until we arrived on set. I started writing and talking it through with Brett. I was frantically writing while he read it out in the car. By the time we got to the set, there was a new speech. He had thirty seconds to learn it before he hit the location. Everything was set up. I explained to Harry what I had just put Brett through and the whole crew were behind him. He hit his mark, took a breath then belted out a word-perfect, on point, INCREDIBLE performance of the speech. Then he did it again. And again. He got a round of applause every time, and my heart soars whenever I see that scene!
Olivia came to see the play of Fleabag and afterwards told me that if I ever wanted her to be in anything, I just had to ask. I ASKED IMMEDIATELY. I then ran to my producers, cracked open the pilot script, rewrote the end and created the part of Godmother specifically for her. She was there at the very first read-through for the BBC in the basement of a café in Soho, and she’s moved mountains to be there for us ever since. If it wasn’t for her the part of Godmother would have never existed.
Priest
I met Andrew in 2009. We were playing fast-talking, sassy bankers in Roaring Trade at the Soho Theatre. It was a formative acting experience for me. I’d worked with one of the best actors in the world on my first job. Acting with him raised my bar of what it should feel like, look like and sound like to be a performer. He was electric to work with and glorious to spend time with.
As the idea of the Priest was forming, I resisted it. I was too aware of the potholes and pitfalls of TV comedy priests. There were iconic parts in history that loomed over the idea and in some ways it seemed too obvious to put Fleabag with a man of God. Then Andrew stepped to the front of my mind and suddenly the character roared into existence. The pitfalls and the potholes became the marks on a treasure map of how find a new way to bring a priest into the conversation. This challenge intensified: I didn’t just have to write a good part. He had to be good enough for Andrew.
I asked Andrew to meet for a coffee in Soho Theatre. ‘I want you to be in Fleabag Two.’ He was open … ‘Go on …’ I pitched him the character. I told him I wanted to write a kind but complex man who was a match for Fleabag. She has spent her life being able to reduce people to a “Bus Rodent” or an “Arsehole Guy” but this would be a man she couldn’t dismiss. This would be a man whose faith is given real consideration and respect in the show, someone who we took seriously. This would be a love story. His eyes lit up. He told me he’d been wanting to play love for a long time.
For the next four hours Andrew and I spoke about love, life, sex, religion, fear, lust, faith, sexuality, need, family, belonging … everything. His perspective on the world was already influencing the character as we idled through Soho. My inner voice was screaming ‘if he poured a shot-glass’ worth of whatever magic he has is in real life into this show, we’d have a heart-stopping character.’ He turned to me: ‘I want to show you something’. He walked me down Haymarket and we turned into a small door that boasted a sign: Quaker meeting . There was no-one there, just a few signs to remind you not to talk in the meeting room. We walked into the room, sat there alone, the two of us, breaking their only rule for another hour.
When we eventually left, he turned to me: ‘Let’s do it.’ We filmed the Quaker scene in the same place we’d met that day. Andrew brought more to this character than can be summed up in words. He brought a soul to the character, that I believe we all could feel when watching him. He even insisted on the character saying ‘I love you too’ to Fleabag at the end, and thank God he did.
Composer
Iso wrote the music for both series, giving the show it’s defining sound. There was minimal music in the first series, bar the burst of discordance over the titles, and the rock guitar credit music became the sound of Fleabag instantly. However, her score for the second series elevated the story from the page and filled every emotional corner of the story.
One of my favourite memories from making Fleabag was when Iso and I stayed up horrendously late in her studio watching the opening episode again and again trying to find the right sound. I had handed over impossible references of enormous choirs and orchestras. We knew it had to sound epic, but we just didn’t have that kind of budget. She would not be defeated. After hearing all the references she nodded, got up and went out for a cigarette. When she came back she said she needed to ignore everything I had played her and just write from her gut. Agreed. I watched her sit at her keyboard, switch on Episode 1, and improvise live on the keyboard pretty much exactly what you hear in the final result. We practically screamed with excitement all the way through it. She’s a genius.
Editor
Editing is essentially the final draft of the script and Gary sculpts the story just as much as I have to. I LOVE cutting and Gary is never spooked by a brutal slashing of a scene. We try everything , but often end up with his first instincts. We tried taking all the asides out of the first episode. We spliced and cut and sewed things together with Harry as if the whole show was a free-for-all. Gary is a magician. If a joke doesn’t land or a scene is sticky, he will find a way to rearrange, break it up, tweak it, turn it round until it sings. He can restructure a scene, transform a performance, make a funny moment heartbreaking and vice-versa. He and Iso have a special and specific bond. In moments of panic he’ll wave his hand and say ‘just wait til Iso gets her hands on it … wait for her music.’ Strangely, her score often fit perfectly with his cuts even though she hadn’t seen them yet. We spent days on that final scene at the bus stop. All of us crammed into that tiny editing space until 3am, shaving seconds off a reaction shot. Gary freaking out at the mouse scurrying around beneath us. Even though we were blurry-eyed and exhausted, he wouldn’t stop until it was as close to perfect as we could get it. He has no poker face. He got emotional, or roared with laughter or just as frankly stared me right in the eye with a ‘nah, it’s just not funny mate’. He’s as huge-hearted as he is quick-witted and can cut a diamond out of anything. At the end of the second series Fleabag looks up at the bus stop which reads Dollner Avenue . A small tribute to a total hero.
Jack and Harry Williams commissioned a show from me after I recited the ten-minute monologue to them over a pint. It was the most relaxed meeting I had ever had with producers and it’s been that way ever since. They trusted me and championed me, and never forced their presence. They optioned me on the basis of a few jokes. ‘You’re funny.’
Lydia Hampson and Sarah Hammond were the producers and engines at the heart of the show. They probably slept the least and worried the most besides me. They had very little budget and absolutely no time, yet were eternally patient with mad last-minute delivery and were across the story lining all the way. Whatever was needed – a fox that can look at me in a very specific way – they made it happen. They gently talked me down from terrible ideas many times and put blood, sweat and tears into this show. They were vital collaborators at scripting stage, and are at the very heart of Fleabag .
BBC and Amazon were incredibly supportive and gave us so much space and support: without them I wouldn’t have written these scripts or been able to have found this team.
Most of all, I would like to thank Mum, Dad, Iso and Jasp. Their notes, jokes, instincts, love, encouragement and support have been the fire underneath Fleabag from beginning to the end. Thank you for being there every step of the way. I love you.
(And thank you for calling me Flea)
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