Review: Fleabag, Brewery Theatre

Written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (one of Screen International’s UK Stars of Tomorrow 2014) when she was 27 and developed at Soho Theatre, Fleabag is a text-based one-woman play that has gone on that increasingly difficult journey from page to stage, undoubtedly aided by the writer’s youth.

The play has won Waller-Bridge an Olivier nomination, an Off West End award, a Critics Circle award and a clutch of other nominations. Its protagonist is explicit and unashamed on the subject of sex in a way that is both shocking and funny (“I’m not obsessed with sex, I just can’t stop talking about it”). In graphic terms, she chats us through a threesome smeared in menstrual blood, masturbating to a YouPorn gang-bang, a one-night stand (with anal) and sexting, all fuelled by oestrogen: she is deeply in thrall to ‘Madame Ovary’.  No oral, though, and no drugs. But plenty of boozing.

Fleabag was born out of a ten-minute stand-up routine, and its effect of eliciting scattergun laughter reactions from the audience with one-liners and timed bombshells has the distinct rhythm of stand-up. It’s a bit like a filthy night out with the girls, where behaving badly is cause for celebration and no holds are barred. But Fleabag also contains its own come-down and hangover: beneath the carnality, hedonism and hilarity there is a sense of the character being badly adrift and unhappy.

She recounts a drunken visit to her father and his new partner where dad gets shot of his inconvenient and incoherent daughter by putting her straight in a taxi. She slides off her bar stool at one point to take selfies of her boobs and ‘vagina’ (a curiously inaccurate, inside-out term for our lady bits, no?) to send to her erstwhile boyfriend, and there is something heart-wrenching in her ungainly stooping, like the world-weariness of a whore routinely taking off her knickers for business.  And our character casually tells us in passing that she had a little cry (“not sure what about”) at three different points in the show.

A bit of sociology is included in the ticket price, for what is almost as engaging as the material of Fleabag is the audience’s reaction to it: the under-40s are quick to read it on the level of familiarity and react with laughter, while the over-40s go quiet and thoughtful, not so much from shock at the ‘dirty’ bits as disquiet at the undercurrent of discomfort. When a guinea-pig gets kicked across a room, the 20-and 30-somethings are at a total loss, and there’s a sharp in-take of breath which seems to take the place of a communally vetoed shock-laugh.

Fleabag is definitely worth seeing. If you’re under 40, take an older friend (but maybe not your mum), and vice versa – you’re guaranteed a lively discussion afterwards over a few pints of wine. The opening night was sold out, which bodes well for the whole run. Sex may be a beast with two backs, or a way of getting you on your back, but it’s also a good way of getting bums on seats.

Fleabag continues at the Brewery Theatre until Saturday, 7 February. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/detail/fleabag