A WOMAN’S WORK
Phoebe Waller-Bridge creates female characters that are shameless, witty and confrontational – and firmly at the centre of the narrative, says Clarisse Loughrey
Having already dazzled US audiences, BBC America’s thriller series Killing Eve now comes to the UK, with two Emmy nominations already in its back pocket. However, despite its American production, the show’s debut on the UK’s BBC feels like a homecoming, largely due to its Brit creator Phoebe WallerBridge. Acting as executive producer, and having written several episodes, she has her imprints all over the show; Killing Eve may be a drama, but its acerbic, witty humour means it speaks in the same tone as Fleabag. A tone that feels like a small, but significant rebel cry in the world of the BBC where funny, brilliant women are so often sidelined.
Killing Eve debuts the same week QI host Sandi Toksvig called out British panel shows for leaving a significant portion of women’s contributions on the cutting room floor. Speaking to the Radio Times, she
said: “There are panel shows that struggle to get women on, and that’s because the women feel marginalised and stupid, and in the edit are often seen just laughing at the boys and not saying anything at all, even though I know for a fact in the recording they were clever.”
Waller-Bridge’s work is an antithesis to so much of mainstream British comedy, where women are instructed to stand on the edges
Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, first aired in 2016, is more of an outlier when it comes to female-led comedy on British TV (Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum is another which flashes to mind). It’s common for women in the industry to complain about the lack of opportunities in the UK, having found far more success over in the US. Waller-Bridge’s work, as a whole, has been praised for the way it candidly portrays sex from a woman’s perspective, with critics comparing it to Lena Dunham’s groundbreaking US comedy drama Girls. However, it’s equally significant to view her work as an antithesis to so much of mainstream British comedy, where women are instructed to stand on the edges and laugh politely at the jokes of men, occasionally with a little, “Oh, stop it!”, to seal the deal.
Waller-Bridge’s women – whether in Killing Eve, Fleabag or her Channel 4 sitcom Crashing – are confrontational in a myriad of ways, but always without shame. Fleabag’s unnamed protagonist, played by Waller-Bridge herself, is prone to looking directly at the camera; she’ll smirk at us, argue with us, even lie to us. The frequency with which she breaks the fourth wall builds a more direct, more intimate relationship between character and viewer, one that’s frequently tested throughout the show. She eagerly invites us into her most awkward moments: getting caught in the act of wanking off to Obama, for example. She is, without a doubt, the centre of our attention, flipping the norm: no longer must women stand at the sidelines, watching men act outrageously, while they silently roll their eyes and shrug.
Killing Eve similarly sees the tables turned. In this adaptation of Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle novella series, MI5 agent Eve (played by Sandra Oh) gets to fill in the role of the typical male hero: a messy and terribly flawed genius. She bursts into the room like a tornado, fumbling at bag straps, shoving a croissant in her mouth to try and calm her hangover. But her intuition is still sharp, and she immediately guesses the killer of an Eastern European politician was a woman. When she hears the gruesome details of the crime, she exclaims: “Cool!” Her voice echoes across a conference room of dour faces. Aided by Oh’s performance, which can swing easily from weary to excitable, Eve has a brilliantly oblivious quality to her: so quickly does her mind work that she seems to lose track of where she is or what’s expected of her in the moment.
Villanelle is sexy, certainly, but her characterisation carefully upends (and, in turn, subtly criticises) the trope of seductive female killer
On the other end of the scale is her adversary, the guilty assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer), who possesses psychopathic placidity. She is sexy, certainly, but her characterisation carefully upends (and, in turn, subtly criticises) the trope of seductive female killer. She’s not so cold and empty that she’s reduced merely to an object of the male gaze; her psychopathy isn’t emotionless, but the emotions feel largely cold and carefully learned. This no more evident than in the show’s opening scene, set in an ice cream parlour, in which she locks eyes with a little girl. Villanelle’s small smirk disturbs the child more than it cheers her, and the girl’s eyes dart over to the man behind the counter. He’s smiling. A full, warm smile. The little girl smiles back. Villanelle looks over to him, attempts to copy his expression, and finally manages to make the little girl smile back at her. As she leaves, she knocks over the girl’s ice cream into her lap.
Indeed, the most intense sexual chemistry in the show isn’t between Villanelle and the men she seduces: it’s between her and Eve. Villanelle’s murders are a cry for attention, as her methods become increasingly flamboyant, and she starts to leave more clues behind. Eve is the one to answer that call. Their fascination with each other, a kind of curiosity, perhaps mutual respect, quickly turns into a kind of obsession. All while the men around them are deliberately underwritten. Characters that would traditionally dominate the narrative – Villanelle’s handler (Kim Bodnia) and Eve’s husband (Owen McDonnell) – are surprisingly passive. It’s the mental duel between Eve and Villanelle that electrifies the show.
From Fleabag to Killing Eve, Waller-Bridge writes funny, vibrant women who live defiantly at the centre of their narratives; who will not be shifted to the sidelines; who will not exist to laugh at the jokes of men. With both shows greenlit for second outings, long may these women thrive.