Televised Stage Performance of Fleabag is Like an Origin Story… but Awesome-r

By Thom Ernst

Rating: A

I admire all my Original-Cin colleagues, but when it comes to television series no one quite hits the mark as consistently as Bonnie Laufer. I would follow Bonnie’s television advice as faithfully as I would follow the light into the afterlife. So, when Bonnie tells me that Fleabag is a show well worth watching, then I can count on Fleabag being a show well worth watching.

So, I watch it, and it is. Bonnie’s not wrong.

But no amount of acclaim could have prepared me for a show so textured in both the comic and the tragic (mostly comic) and with a character equally disarming in her moments of strength as in her moments of weakness. Watching Fleabag is like watching a sleight-of-hand that defies what we understand to be humanly possible. Am I overselling? No, I am not. I unreservedly join Barack Obama as going on record by calling Fleabag “powerful.”

I’m convinced that Fleabag’s creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge has superpowers. (She also penned a little gem called Killing Eve). Waller-Bridge has the unworldly ability to find compassion in Fleabag’s least empathetic moments, and poise when she is at her most vulnerable. Magic.

But—surprise—this is not a review of Fleabag, the series. After two successful seasons and a momentum that shows no sign of slacking, a review at this point would be redundant. Instead, this is a review of Fleabag, Waller-Bridge’s award-winning one-woman play that she first introduced in 2013—or as I prefer to say—Fleabag’s origin film.

The National Theatre Live televised Fleabag—currently streaming on Soho Theatre On Demand—opens with Fleabag (Waller-Bridges) taking to the stage. Stage lighting rarely varies beyond rising and dimming. She walks to the only prop the performance allows, an unadorned bar stool. She takes her seat where she remains anchored throughout the performance shifting only on the rare occasion the script calls for action that is not already implicit in Wallace-Bridges words and her infectious presence. Waller-Bridge’s side-glanced observations and self-conscious dismissals are enough set-design to thrill Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Waller-Bridge gives us Fleabag, a self-proclaimed “bad” feminist with a sardonic wit, and unapologetically abundant sex life. Her cool, and somewhat erratic, self-reliance is contradicted with admissions of being disappointed with a man who does not molest her while she was incapacitated. We are given permission to laugh at this, but the best we can muster is a chuckle, not because the moment does not work, but because Fleabag might be aching in ways we did not expect.

Waller-Bridges tosses away lines as if they hardly matter, blurting out confessions as if the entire monologue is scripted from a slip of the tongue. She can change direction in the middle of a sentence, speaking, then back-pedaling as if thinking better of her words. In a flash, Fleabag confesses, then denies, then struggles to get back on track, finishing off by telling the audience to shut up, as if catching them in the immoral act of judging her.

Fleabag on stage is season one of the series. Fans of the series will note a few changes from stage to screen. The most dramatic difference is the stage versions absence of any reference to Fleabag’s slyly ubiquitous godmother played by Olivia Colman. And the breakdown of the fourth wall that is utilized to great effect in the series is not necessary on stage.

It is a weird title: Fleabag. It conjures images of a Red Hot Chili Peppers’ guitarist camping it up in a steam-punk comedy; something along the lines of Kids In the Hall, only British and more twisted. But Fleabag is no more than a nickname. It might seem a harsh and judgmental nickname, given the character’s vigorous sex-life—sometimes shared with a partner, sometimes without—but it is also the nickname (for reasons I don’t know) given to Waller-Bridges’ by her family. So, if Waller-Bridges is fine with it, who am I to jump to her defense?

On the left-side of Waller-Bridge face, a just above her temple is a birthmark. It is mostly covered by a strand of hair but when Fleabag flips her hair back, it is unmistakably there. And when she reveals it, it seems purposeful, challenging our opinion of her, drawing us away from the ethereal and into the physical. Can we love a ‘bad’ feminist? Can we love someone who is compulsive, careless, and self-destructive? When Waller-Bridge reveals her birthmark, she is not showing us her flaw, she is showing us ours.

That National Theatre Live performance of Fleabag, directed by Vicky Jones and Tony Grech-Smith, is available in Canada through Soho Theatre On Demand. Revenues are donated to UK based charities on the front lines of combatting the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting those affected by it.

Take Bonnie’s word and watch the series; take my word and watch the play.