By Nick Shepley
How, in an age of increasingly anodyne TV comedy, did Fleabag get made? Who took a chance on this dark, troubling and brilliant show?
Whoever took a risk with the show and commissioned it will be remembered not only for green lighting one of the few truly original comedies of the decade but also bringing the subject of female sex addiction to TV audiences for the first time.
The addict anti hero is a familiar fixture of British TV and film from Withnail to Father Jack, mainly however, the anarchic miscreant is male.
For those who haven’t watched Fleabag, written and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the story revolves around the life and misadventures of the eponymous character. Fleabag’s day to day life involves keeping her failing café from bankruptcy and navigating her uptight sister, distant father and manipulative mother in law.
Principally, however, Fleabag is motivated by sex. She admits in a counselling session that she uses sex to fill the emptiness inside her and that her greatest fear is that one day no one will want her. She also realises, in a moment of clarity that might be familiar to many addicts, that she wishes she had never discovered sex and that it destroyed everything it touches.
Fleabag in some ways is able to appear highly empowered in the show, she is able to own her own sexuality and her attraction to men and women. She is sexually assertive and confident and often more powerful than the male sexual partners she chooses. In some cases she selects her lovers, in others she rejects.
However, as the show develops a deeper truth regarding the confidence that Fleabag projects is revealed. Instead of the sexually transgressive, liberated modern woman a deeply lonely, grieving and empty person, ill at ease with themselves and their life emerges.
Also, the addict is gradually revealed. Fleabag is preoccupied by sex; when a relationship with her tearful, earnest and sensitive boyfriend breaks down she sees opportunities emerge for new sexual encounters and, looking at the camera announces that she has to ‘get back on it.’
Alcohol is a constant feature of Fleabag’s life and her problematic relationship with it is gradually presented to the audience. British television has relatively few portrayals of women who are gradually slipping into alcohol dependency and much of the discussion of female drinking is still mired in the debates about propriety in ‘ladette’ culture that emerged in the 1990s.
What is striking about Fleabag, other than its brilliantly funny moments and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s asides to the camera, is that the main character neither asks for sympathy nor receives very much of it. The show is not written to elicit sympathy, but perhaps it is designed to create some empathy or understanding.
As the central tragedy of the story is gradually revealed and secrets are eventually presented to the viewer, the hidden forces that motivate endless cycles of punishing and self-destructive behaviour become clear. Fleabag’s unmanageable life becomes a form of therapy for the viewer.
Addictions therapist Veronica Valli commented on the show’s exploration of the relationship between addiction and pain.
“Fleabag is revolutionary for not just glorifying women’s alcohol abuse as something harmless to laugh at, but because it explores the pain and emotions that are driving her behaviour.”
She added: “It makes the link between alcohol abuse and emotional pain in a way that has not really been done before.”