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Fleabag monologue3/20/2023 ![]() So let’s savour this dark night of the soul, one last time. With Waller-Bridge off writing a Bond film now, I doubt we’ll see her on the stage any time soon. After sleeping with Fleabag after weeks of tension, The Priest is understandably a bit confused as he marries her dad and stepmum, and his feelings all came spilling out as he spoke about love. But the return of the original monologue isn’t just an ego trip it’s a piece of theatre that still really stands up (though I’d love to hear somebody justify those top prices). Ultimately, ‘Fleabag’ series two is Waller-Bridge’s masterpiece, the perfection of the character. Still, the fact that the tonal shift is substantially accomplished by a truly gut-wrenching pivotal scene involving a mortally wounded guinea pig – there are some things that the spoken word can conjure more graphically than television – is testament to the enduring writing. I wouldn’t say it’s overwhelmed by the occasion: it is a great piece of writing, and has inevitably gained stardust simply by dint of the fact Waller-Bridge is now a major celebrity.īut it was written for a different context, and some of the gear changes belie its origin, the need for the narrator-with-a-secret to get her secret out within a tight 65 minutes. Vicky Jones’s production is to all intents and purposes unchanged, barring the fact that Waller-Bridge is wearing a nicer jumper. The slight elephant in the room is that this is still at heart an hourlong Edinburgh Fringe monologue. If we have a role now, it’s as her confessor (maybe the Hot Priest was all of us etc). We could be somebody she’s boasting away to down the pub.īy the end, though, she is no longer amused with herself instead, she is shattered by the fallout from her nihilistic desire to be liked, with a harrowing intensity I don’t quite recall the TV Fleabag taking on, if only because that story was leavened with other characters. There is a malevolent chutzpah as she kicks off by detailing the time she was dumped by her boyfriend for wanking over Obama in bed while eating a ‘slutty pizza’. At the start, she presents her heroine’s most awful exploits like hunting trophies. ![]() It is self-contained, a parallel universe version of the character that remains grubby, bedsitty and tragic.Īnd it is an amazing performance: Waller-Bridge still sounds both insouciant and devastated. But she spends more time launching into a marvellously obscene pout and doing an impression of the rodenty guy she meets on the tube. Fleabag’s sister, Claire, and deceased best friend, Boo, are still conjured by Waller-Bridge as she sits alone on a stool. In fact, there are very few other characters. There’s no Hot Priest, foxes or gins in tins. But equally, the more expansive, textured and ultimately hopeful second series had made me forget quite how bleak the original monologue gets.Īnd the monologue is not the TV show, even if the first series (and a couple of lines from the second) was extrapolated from its DNA. It’s funny, though there’s less sense of it being taboo-busting. The character feels more familiar, both in terms of the TV show and the wider influence of Waller-Bridge’s writing. Third time around, it feels like a little of each. But the depths of self-loathing plumbed by Waller-Bridge’s protagonist – who I guess we can call Fleabag for the sake of ease – connected brutally. The jokes didn’t get big laughs from the frazzled crowd. So apologies and that, but my first time was in a dank cave at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe, and it felt like one of the funniest things I’d ever seen: its depiction of a young woman hurtling through London on full-on self-destruct mode felt genuinely outrageous and fresh.Ī year later I saw it in a large tent at the 2014 Latitude Festival, where it felt almost unbearably depressing. It is the law that every theatre hack writing about the 2019 West End revival of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s career-making monologue ‘Fleabag’ must first list all the other times they saw it. He’s since been banned from the Academy with the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, but the incident seemed to illustrate Hollywood’s true colors for many appalled viewers.Find out how you can still get ‘Fleabag’ tickets ![]() The whole thing was disgusting, and looking back many wonder why the Academy even allowed Polanski’s films to be submitted for consideration. Reminder: he couldn’t be there in person because he’s a literal fugitive. Polanski’s past apparently didn’t upset Academy voters (or his colleagues), as he was announced as the best director of the year to a thunderous standing ovation. ![]() You’d think that would be the end of his career, right?Īpparently, not so-the director was nominated for best director and best film at the Academy Awards in 2003 for his work on “The Pianist,” alongside star Adrien Brody. He admitted to sleeping with a 13-year old girl when he pled guilty to statutory rape charges in 1977, and then he fled the country to avoid charges. (Image credit: Oscars) Roman Polanski’s Win In 2003
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