‘Every single member, they all give a little part of their hearts to Fleabag’
Phoebe Waller-bridge talks to Georgia Humphreys about the return of her hit black comedy
Fleabag started as a onewoman stage show after you performed at a standup night. What inspired the material?
I was writing it for Vicky Jones – my collaborator who I work with a lot and is also my best friend.
The deal I had in my head was I was just going to write something that would make Vicky laugh. I did it and the first 10 minutes ended up being the first 10 minutes of the play.
There was something so electrifying about being able to say the truth and it being allowed to be said with an edge and an angry character.
Just write what scares you – imagine what you would write if you weren’t afraid.
What is the difference between writing for stage and TV?
You have a captive audience in the theatre. I think that’s what makes people quite lazy when they’re writing for theatre because they think ‘you’ve got to stay around’.
So the discipline of writing the play was every line had to be a new direction, the audience had to be kept on their toes.
There’s an extreme version of that on screen because people can switch off or go and do their washing or whatever while they’re watching so you have to make it even more surprising and arresting, and visually as well.
Did you feel pressure following on from the success of series one of Fleabag and Killing Eve?
Yeah, I felt immense pressure after Fleabag, and Killing Eve as well, because when you’re in it you’re just in a bubble and you hope people are going to jump on it.
But when they do, it’s just like, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to do it again’.
The moment this team came back together, every single member, they all give a little part of their hearts to Fleabag.
And when you’ve got that around, that really fortified me against the pressure, to a certain extent.
But also, once you’ve got the idea and you’ve got these events and they feel true for these characters, and it feels true and important to put that on screen in some way, that really fortified me.
Are the characters in the show based on real people?
Sometimes they come from an interaction I have with one person, in one room one day, and they just say something or do something that just inspires an entire character and then they build from there.
But I think the way you make them feel truthful is they have to keep surprising you when you’re writing.
What can we expect from Fleabag’s complicated relationship with her sister Claire this series?
They love each other with such a violence that it’s just pulsing through them all the time and they can’t, for whatever reason, tell each other.
And at the end of the last series when they have a hug, it’s a really big moment for them.
When Claire betrayed Fleabag in the last series it just felt worse than any romantic love story or break up. So bringing them back together was the biggest challenge.
Does that relationship replicate your own sibling relationships at all?
Yeah, of course, all the love and the spats you have growing up.
With siblings, you can push it further with each other because you know you will love each other forever.
You can be the ugliest version of yourself with those people in a way that you can’t with other people that you’ve met, or your chosen family.
What is your writing process like for Fleabag?
It’s all quite last minute. I wish I had a plan or had something that definitely works.
But really I have big ideas early on and then doubt them for ages ... I put loads of Post-its on the wall and then know that there are things that I definitely want to be on it and then I move the Postits around, like: ‘What if that happened in that episode? And what happens if you suddenly take that out and put it there?’
It sounds like hell, and it is. But then, at the very last minute, it will all come together, and then I’ll write and it’s usually that lastminute draft that we go with.
● Episode one of series two of Fleabag will launch on BBC3 today at 10am and will air on BBC1 at 10:35pm.