NOW IT’S FLEE-BAG!
Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge is back in a new comedy drama about a couple who decide to run away... from everything
Phoebe Waller-Bridge didn’t act for two years after graduating from drama school, instead doing various temping jobs. It wasn’t the happiest of times, but it did sow the seeds for her latest TV series.
‘If we weren’t enjoying our temping jobs – or were in relationships that we no longer wanted to be a part of – one of us would say to the other, “RUN!” and we’d do precisely that,’ remembers her best friend Vicky Jones. ‘When you’re poor and powerless, it felt like a comforting thing to do.’
Now the very opposite of poor and powerless, Fleabag creator and Killing Eve writer Phoebe and successful theatre director Vicky have joined forces to create a comedy-drama series based on the idea of quitting and fleeing.
Run has been written by Vicky, and Phoebe both acts in it and is an executive producer. The eight-part series stars Domhnall Gleeson and Nurse
Jackie actress Merritt Wever as Billy Johnson and Ruby Richardson, former college sweethearts who made a pact 17 years ago: if either texted RUN and the other replied with the same, they’d drop everything, meet in New York’s Grand Central
Station and travel across America.
‘Which is precisely what happens,’ says Irish star Domhnall, son of acting legend Brendan Gleeson. ‘Ruby is sitting in the car park of a shopping mall in California when she gets a text from Billy: RUN. She takes a flight to New York and reaches Grand Central Station in time for – as agreed years ago – the first train out of town after 5pm.’
The bulk of the first episode takes place on a train, which is travelling to Chicago, as Billy and Ruby get reacquainted.
Billy appears more comfortable with running away and although Ruby’s relationship with her husband Laurence is strained, she seems to have more to leave behind. When Billy picks up her dropped phone, the screensaver shows a picture of Ruby with Laurence – and two young children.
As the series unfolds, we see the impact Ruby and Billy running away has on other people, including Laurence and Billy’s personal assistant Fiona, played by British actress and
The Good Wife star Archie Panjabi. Phoebe Waller-Bridge appears later in the series as Flick, who plays a key part in Billy and Ruby’s adventure.
Domhnall hopes the series will provide some relief from the troubles of the world, commenting, ‘There are obviously far more important things happening right now, but Run might offer a nice bit of escapism.
‘I reckon it will get people thinking. Everybody becomes overwhelmed at times, worries about the choices they’ve made and feels they’ve made a prison for themselves. This series will resonate with a lot of people.’
‘It offers a nice bit of escapism’
■ Run, Wednesday, 9pm, Sky Comedy.