FLEABAG: The Scriptures
Celebrating two decades of knowing Phoebe Waller f*cking Bridge
Twenty years ago today, I rocked up to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art full of hopes and dreams with a wide open heart and an even bigger grin (soon to be shattered to pieces but nevertheless) I’d had a RADA prospectus from about age 12 and it had taken me three years of auditioning to get in, so I was keen to say the least.
I was directed to a room that would come to be known as Acting Studio 1, in the RADA Gower Street building in London’s Bloomsbury. Black sprung floors, white walls, a piano in the corner, stacks of chairs laid out in rows that day and naturally, I guess it wouldn’t be an educational establishment without them, oppressive overhead fluorescent white lights that would eventually send us to sleep in our ‘sight-reading’ classes.
Once we were all met, there were 31 students present other than me — 2 more would be joining in a couple of days; one was ill, one was… late? (a story for another time) — but of those 31, one of them, was Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Within three days I knew I had met one of the coolest people I would ever know (another story for another time) but I was of course yet to discover the extraordinary impact she would have on the course my life. The rest as they say, is history.
I grew up reading TV comedy scripts - mainly Absolutely Fabulous and Fawlty Towers though before then, desperate to be able to read as a child, I vividly remember clutching the green leather bound Yes, Prime Minister scripts fast to me in a way that felt like reading, to try to convince my parents of my super-prodigy advanced skillset, though the symbols were still far beyond my understanding at that time. What made me reach for that book in particular, I couldn’t tell you. Shall we call it kismet? Or perhaps even, destiny.
Once I had mastered literacy though, I would voraciously read everything I could lay my hands on, scripts and all. I remember acting the scripts out for hours and hours with my friend Amy, we would rotate who got to play Sybil or Basil, Eddie or Patsy. It was quite the thing in the 90s, TV comedy scripts, or it was certainly my thing but the trend died out… until about twenty years later with the publication of Fleabag: The Scriptures, now they’re everywhere again.
I can’t even begin to express the warmth that that breathes into my belly so instead I’m going to jump straight in to the reading — it’s a slight break away from my standard reads, I’m not reading lines from the actual script, that would be weird, but sharing some of the additional material that Phoebe wrote for this gorgeous collection along with some of my own fond personal memories and thoughts on the creative process. Hope you enjoy :)