In 2013, Phoebe Waller-Bridge performed a one-woman show at Edinburgh Fringe called Fleabag, which unloads her id: She’s sexually liberated, overstimulated, pissed, grieving. And now Fleabag is heading to Amazon.
A co-production with the BBC, the adaptation will debut this fall for Prime Instant subscribers, with Waller-Bridge in the lead role. Olivia Colman, who’s also in the dark British comedy Flowers, co-stars, as does Brett Gelman (Married, Go On). Waller-Bridge relates that Gelman plays her brother-in-law, who is “bored and oversexed and likes making people slightly uncomfortable.”
Waller-Bridge described the play and her characters as “an amalgamation of a lot of my fears with jokes on top,” calling it “one long scream at the industry and society.” She manages to zero in on how modern women struggle with certain tenets of empowerment. In a 2014 interview, Waller-Bridge said, “I do feel that there’s a loneliness in a lot of women that I’ve met or like a fear that we’re not sure how to articulate ourselves about our sexuality.”
That should translate well to Amazon. Fleabag joins the well-received Catastrophe and Golden Globe-winning Transparent in Amazon’s growing, sexually liberated comedy lineup. The series is currently filming in London.
H/T Splitsider