Fleabag is coming to Dallas! Sort of. This Thursday, September 12th, the Angelika Film Center will stream a live broadcast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman show from the West End’s National Theatre in London. Focusing on the hilarious, but often messy, and sometimes tragic life of an early 30-something woman in London, the play eventually spawned the eponymous hit show on BBC and Amazon. If you can’t make it this Thursday, don’t worry, there’s an encore broadcast September 19th, it just won’t be live. This is most likely your last chance to see the play. Following sold out shows in both New York and London, Waller-Bridge is putting Fleabag behind her indefinitely, six years after first performing it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
We might have reached peak dark, female-led comedies this year, with Killing Eve (another Waller-Bridge project), Dead to Me, Catastrophe, and Russian Doll, all on the air, but Fleabag and Phoebe Waller-Bridge have been really having a moment in 2019. Season two premiered earlier this year, and was a perfect example of how to properly end a tv show (I’m looking at you, Game of Thrones).
Don’t worry though, there will still be plenty of PWB in the future. After saying goodbye to Fleabag for the final time this week, Waller-Bridge will have her hands full working on a new series, and injecting a much-needed dose of complex female characters into the next James Bond film, No Time to Die.
Unfortunately, there is no Hot Priest in the one-woman show (though it certainly would be entertaining to see PWB play both Fleabag and Hot Priest), as the play is only season one material. But the good news is, we still get plenty of her louche exploits, caustic wit, and struggling, guinea pig-themed cafe. The sardonic asides are still there, along with the her self-loathing, sex-obsessed antics. Expect to full body laugh, while simultaneously feeling uncomfortable with the fact that you’re laughing.
The play is screening at Angelika Film Center on September 12 and 19. Tickets can be purchased here.
