Fleabag (West End)

I just about got to the end of episode one of Fleabag before I chucked the remote at the telly in anger. The show was incredibly funny, provocative, exciting – and unwatchable. It’s odd – why?  L337 is hilarious – she and Freddie Fox in Blithe Spirit were electric, her SNL this week had some tremendous high points (not least her monologue). The jokes made me belly laugh throughout. From THAT opening set-piece, its lack of boundaries gave us nowhere to hide. So why was I so angry at a very funny show? The problem is, from the framing of her humour to the standard of life she lives, the bubble Fleabag lives in is patronisingly two-dimensional. Posh, indisputably, privileged, but more than that – the asides, the winks, these all implied we were in this together, in a world most of us couldn’t dream of. Her failures in the show are bubble-wrapped by privileges most of us can’t have, prettified up – where they should be embarrassing to watch, they’re not only framed as exciting, but (accidentally?) treated as aspirational. I keep meaning to return to the TV show (gotta get in on that Hot Priest zeitgeist), but first I was intrigued as to whether these problems occur in the stage show that began it all.

The stage show is Steve McQueen’s Shame, rewritten by Richard Curtis as a Mr Bean sketch. Some of that is inevitably very good. Some of it isn’t.

(Some of you are going to hate me for this review, so I should add that when I get on my soapbox my tongue is in my cheek, and I do think L337 is an incredibly talented writer and performer. I’m mostly, simply, going to criticise her for a couple of her blindspots – now, do you think I have any blindspots? Nevertheless…)

Towards the end, Fleabag says “either everyone feels like this and no-one says anything, or I’m f***ed up”. With this line, it’s confirmed that Fleabag is L337’s translation of Everyman, from the anonymous naming that allows us to easily replicate ourselves, to the hero’s journey through vice and loss, to the fact it asks us – literally asks us, face-to-face – to see ourselves in the character. This is not intrinsically a bad thing. Much of what Fleabag goes through is explicitly, painfully relatable. Fleabag is indisputably an honest, bold, good show.

However, just as the NT’s Everyman lost its everyman credentials by turning a medieval saint into Patrick Bateman, Fleabag loses is Fleabaggy credentials by keeping Fleabag in her bubble. Fleabag, for example, doesn’t say she lives in London – it’s just assumed – doesn’t everyone? – and then after a night out, daddy buys her a taxi to the other side of London; yes she loses her job, but her sister’s £5,000 loan is the real problem, not her.  Her bubble is not a deliberate choice but a blind spot, and the asides, assuming everyone can connect with uncharacteristic non-self-awareness, prove it. Fleabag’s messy life is messy by VERY SPECIFIC parameters, and acknowledging those parameters (asking in an aside whether this really is everyone, or just her world) would elevate this, break her out of her bubble, challenge her. Fleabag, however, remains almost entirely unchallenged throughout the play. Fleabag’s life is so sterile, in her apartment the smell of sh*t is an aberration.

One such thing, for example, is her cruelty. Perhaps in the TV show, to see her sister be called ‘anorexic’ and that hurt helps take Fleabag off her pedestal. Here, Fleabag says it because she thinks it’s relatable – and that’s not questioned. Being judgemental is fine (who isn’t?), and with some objectivity that flaw could be seen as nasty, but universal, but nasty. Instead, Fleabag just comes across as unnecessarily nasty, because she’s coooool. And just as Boo’s suicide is only seen as shocking because upsets Fleabag and not ruined Boo’s life, Fleabag’s cruelty is portrayed as ‘saying the unsayable’ in the way lazy right-wing shock-comics do.

You know what would be fascinating? This mess in, um, the real world. In the play, the poshness is less oppressive here than it was on the telly – here a lot is implied which there was annoyingly inescapable and unmentioned. I still found the privilege grating, though – the privilege marred with universality. I’d love for Fleabag to have been set not in a Hamster Café, but in a library, or a school, or a boring office – one where turning up hungover has serious consequences to other people – a bit like Boo’s suicide had consequences to other people. Because of L337’s blind spots, Fleabag has the ability to act almost unchecked. Perhaps that’s why she’s so iconic now. I think it would be fascinating to put checks on her; instead, her life so bubble-wrapped, her viewpoint so solipsistic, her world never challenged, Waller-Bridge plays a more realistic character in Solo than in Fleabag.

All of that said, L337’s performance, inevitably, deserves the raves. I felt some of the accent work was a wee bit OTT (the dialogues were more compelling from just her perspective and they came across as PWB being performative herself as opposed to Fleabag performing), but the 100 minutes of her darting through life did bring her character’s exuberance to life through her talent and her talent alone. She’s also, clearly, a great silent star, the best moments being a mime, resignedly going through the motions, bringing her surroundings to life. Indisputably L337 is a great performer.

The success of Fleabag is fascinating to dissect. Firstly, its global success, whilst astonishing, hasn’t captured the entire zeitgeist – it’s rare to read about Fleabag in any raggier papers than the Guardian or the American Snobby Press, or hear her talked about in communities but those of relative privilege (hell, owning Amazon Prime in the first place takes privilege!). In my own bubble, most people feel like me – Fleabag is funny, but we all have HUGE reservations about the telly show because the its two-dimensional posh world being portrayed as the whole world. I would argue more extremely, that the success it has had is self-defeating. People don’t see Fleabag as a fleabag; they see her as a fashion icon, a great modern wit, an ideal. Her jumpsuit sold out immediately – the fact that its biggest societal impact was on fashion shows where its true allegiances lie.

(Incidentally, possibly, a TV camera CAN offer objectivity in the way a one-person show can’t (not easily). I wonder if, in those initial three-star reviews from Edinburgh, critics picked up on the demonstrable flaws in this enjoyable show, and the TV show rectified a bunch of those to great artistic success – also, the second series (Hot Priest) seems to have captured the imagination far more than series one, and seems to challenge Fleabag more. Now, with hindsight and broader characterisation behind her, the stage show gets standing ovations for being the superior TV show in microcosm, whilst still being a three-star stage show itself. Is that fair?)

Nonetheless, the show is messier than the character by a loooooooooooooooong way. If Fleabag was a fleabag, her success would be very different. People would see themselves in her, whilst raising their own eyebrows.  Instead the emulation she’s gotten – the fancy dress she’s become – shows that from the title downwards, Fleabag has failed at creating a fleabag. She’s despicable, but aspirational; she’s messy, in a sterile world; she’s pathetic, but boy is she privileged! Rather than a truly insightful, character-driven, considered study of a messy modern woman, Fleabag is an ironic, sexy-Halloween-costume version of a messy modern woman.

So, three stars. L337 can put together a good set-piece, and is a very, very funny performer. Fleabag on stage is a good if underdeveloped story of a woman enjoying her freedom. ‘Owever, freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.

Oct 11, 2019 11:27:06 GMT Jan said:

Interesting points. The TV overall viewing figures for Fleabag are poor, only 1-2 million, so it is a niche programme. But my guess is (like Mad Men which I commented on elsewhere) the percentage of the media and theatre elite (for want of a better word, Rufus Norris and his social circle for example) who watch it is very high. She is only Everyman for that very small demographic. Given their influence the amount of press coverage it gets as a result is way out of proportion compared with other TV shows with similar viewing figures.

Oct 13, 2019 15:45:23 GMT vdcni said:

Fleabag viewing figures ended up in the 3-4m range once 28 Days and 4 screens are taken into account and that doesn't cover all sources. It has a strongly 16-34 audience so it's being consumed differently.

It’d be wrong to say Fleabag’s not successful, because it is (it’d also be wrong to say it’s not deserving of success). As you say, those viewing figures aren’t representative wholly. However, Jan’s right – its success has been squared by the amount of journalists and people in public positions for whom it’s relevant. The truth is between you two – Fleabag’s success goes beyond viewing figures, but the total figures are still nowhere near as big as loads of other shows, so its popularity IS disproportionate.

Clearly, people who write about fashion, or TV, or culture, all see themselves in Fleabag in a way they don’t in, say, a Jimmy McGovern show – of course those who see themselves reflected in a Jimmy McGovern show aren’t given a voice in fashion press, TV press, or cultural press, and by and large in the press at all. Fleabag’s success should be praised – and L337 is hugely talented and her talent deserves to be praised – but its success should go hand in hand with asking why it’s successful, or more crucially who is making it that successful.  Why is it (and not Jimmy McGovern or This Country) exported? Who are our cultural writers, cultural commissioners, cultural gatekeepers? Maybe a show like This Country or Derry Girls would be a cultural hit if our cultural arbiters came from those communities. Maybe our BBC would export them if they wanted to show a richer country culturally. Mind, dressing like Fleabag’s cool, but dressing like a 90s Irish schoolgirl would probably get you arrested…

I think Fleabag the stage show is good with demonstrable flaws, many of which are simply bad writing lots of Fringe shows have – self-indulgent anecdotes to show the performer off, poor structure, succumbing to the seeming limitations (in perspective, in storytelling, in framing) of a one-person show. I imagine Fleabag the telly show is objectively better, but also REALLY appealing if her appeals to you actually relate to you. I think Fleabag the cultural touchstone is both deserved, but deserved by a lot more breadth of British telly, and IS somewhat disproportionate. As such, the stage show is getting undeserved raves, because the media love seeing themselves in Fleabag so write about it ad infinitum, so then the telly show gets relatively deserved raves. The coverage is still disproportionate. I hope that’s all fair.

(That said, thinking about it – the most popular show by viewing figures (which is also a theatre hit, but at stadia) is Mrs Brown’s Boys! No-one, however, writes about it, because its target audience is – shock horror! – working class. Mrs Brown’s Boys is about a self-hating woman who mistreats her loved ones whilst breaking the fourth wall. Mrs Brown’s Boys has the exact same plot and soul as Fleabag. Of its fans, no-one watches Mrs Brown’s Boys and wants to dress up like Agnes Brown, emulate her style. Arguably, therefore, Fleabag less successfully creates a fleabaggy character than Mrs Brown’s Boys)

Oct 11, 2019 16:20:37 GMT Steve said:

Oct 11, 2019 10:33:11 GMT Nicholas said:

If Fleabag was a fleabag, her success would be very different. People would see themselves in her, whilst raising their own eyebrows.  Instead the emulation she’s gotten – the fancy dress she’s become – shows that from the title downwards, Fleabag has failed at creating a fleabag. She’s despicable, but aspirational; she’s messy, in a sterile world; she’s pathetic, but boy is she privileged! Rather than a truly insightful, character-driven, considered study of a messy modern woman, Fleabag is an ironic, sexy-Halloween-costume version of a messy modern woman.

So, three stars. L337 can put together a good set-piece, and is a very, very funny performer. Fleabag on stage is a good if underdeveloped story of a woman enjoying her freedom.

I imagine the name "Fleabag" stands in for "Phoebe-blag," suggesting the show's origin as a specific and individual celebration (and ultimately a critique) of one woman's right to do anything she pleases whenever she pleases, whatever society says, a kind of sociopathic alpha-female to match all the societal sociopathic alpha-males we see more frequently.

Back when I first saw the Fleabag stage show, the TV show hadn't aired, so I was actually disappointed and surprised when the Boo plot kicked in, guilt-tripping the character towards forming a conscience.

So back when I saw "Fleabag" at the Soho, before the TV show came out, I thought that the critique of the character through the Boo plot was the phony bit, and all the comic reveling in privilege, and being cutting and mean to other people, was the essence. For this reason, I can't accept Nicholas' suggestion that her privilege is a flaw, but rather it is the whole point: that she is so privileged she simply expects us all to agree with every outrage, just as Trump and Johnson also expect us to.

Steve, your review is, as always, beautifully judged and warm-hearted.  Opinions are, as the phrase goes, like arseholes – everyone’s got one, and Fleabag’s got a massive one – so I’m happy that you’ve loved it through all its incarnations – but I do think it’s interesting that your kneejerk response to its Soho debut was, well, my response but kinder – that Fleabag is more interesting a character when less ‘everyman’ – and you wouldn’t have given it five stars before season two and Hot Priest developed the character. Your interpretation of her as Trumpian-ish is fascinating, and one I kind of understand, but as you yourself say, there is the caveat that THIS script is either too sentimental (she wants to be everyone and appeals to our community) or too sociopathic (undermining those appeals through Fleabag’s specificity, class, and characteristics such as cruelty which are harder to empathise with). What I think would have elevated THIS 90-minute script is to have Fleabag revisit some of her crueller moments and replay them as bluster (proving her sentimental), or have Fleabag revisit her most tragic moment and laugh it off (proving her sociopathic); this version falls between two stools for me – and, putting words in your mouth, somewhat did for you until Hot Priest. Is THIS Fleabag a more nuanced character? Or did L337 make her a more nuanced character through two series of expansive telly, and this is the Sparknotes version?

Incidentally, though, I 100% agree on L337’s talents as a performer (I am being a Tw*t calling her L337, but I do think she’s actually funny in that film, so it’s sort of praise!) – personally I’d love to see her both given a naff Hollywood film to elevate, and also another character piece, either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth, a character so different to her persona but which she as an actress could definitely bring depth to and which would show a different side to her. One reason I’m being relatively kind on this show is because of the opportunities it gave to just watch her perform. Hell, forget Macbeth, give her a silent movie.

P.P.S. Actually somewhat following that, I also read an American article the other day (can’t remember where sadly) about the decade in telly. It praised Fleabag, obvs, but made brief comment that its global takeover came with its more contemplative and richer second series (their words, at last in gist). I think in the UK it’s somewhat similar, and Hot Priest took over here too in a way series one never quite did (am I right, is that fair?). Maybe, therefore, everyone’s right! The reviews are right that it’s a cultural phenomenon – because whilst it maybe wasn’t always, now it is. Its fans are right that it’s a major artistic success – because by the time of its finale, it had become one. And like its initial critics who rightly criticised, I’m right that this stage show isn’t actually much cop – because it took a telly version and second series and a new take on the character to make it shine. In short, I’m right, but Hot Priest is more right.