FLEABAG. I don’t know. Something to love?
I’m crying. My fingers are gripping her. I can’t – I imagine my – I can’t – I can feel how scared she is. How much pain she’s in – My fingers are – I can’t – I hold her to me tightly and – I hold her to me tighter… I hold her to me tighter, until I feel her bones crack against me and her chattering stop.
Everything is quiet and she is safe.
–
MALE VOICE. Okay. Please leave.
FLEABAG. What!? But I – you don’t understand. I need –
MALE VOICE. Please just leave.
FLEABAG starts to leave. She turns back.
FLEABAG. Perv.
MALE VOICE. Slut.
FLEABAG. Wow.
MALE VOICE. Please leave.
FLEABAG. You please leave.
MALE VOICE. It’s my office.
FLEABAG. Yeah?
MALE VOICE. Okay.
Sound effect of feet walking away and a door opening.
FLEABAG. Wait.
Footsteps stop.
What made you laugh?
MALE VOICE. What?
FLEABAG. On my CV. You said it was funny.
MALE VOICE. Um. You wrote that you run a café for guinea pigs…?
FLEABAG. Right. That’s not strictly true but, okay. That made you laugh?
MALE VOICE. Yes. I suppose. Never thought guinea pigs needed –
FLEABAG. It was a guinea-pig-themed café.
MALE VOICE. Oh right.
FLEABAG. Yeah.
MALE VOICE. That makes sense.
FLEABAG. Yeah.
What if I wrote that I fucked that café into liquidation, that I fucked up my family, I fucked my friend by fucking her boyfriend, that I don’t feel alive unless I’m being fucked and I don’t feel in control unless I’m fucking, because fucking makes the world tighten around me, that I’ve been watching people fuck for as long as I’ve been able to search for it, that I know that my body as it is now is really the only thing I have and when that gets old and unfuckable I might as well just kill it, that sometimes I wish I never knew fucking existed because somehow there isn’t anything worse than someone who doesn’t want to fuck me.
That I fuck everything. But this time, I genuinely wasn’t trying to – I wasn’t – I was –
Either everyone feels like this a little bit and they’re just not talking about it, or I’m completely fucking alone. Which isn’t fucking funny.
MALE VOICE. That really wasn’t appropriate.
FLEABAG. Yeah. Okay. Sorry.
She goes to leave.
MALE VOICE. Look. Three months ago I touched a colleague’s breast at a party. Not for the first time. It’s ruined the reputation of the business I’ve been building my whole life and has completely alienated me from my family.
FLEABAG. Why did you do it?
MALE VOICE. I… It was a terrible… mistake.
FLEABAG. People make mistakes.
MALE VOICE. Yes they do.
FLEABAG. That’s why they put rubbers on the ends of pencils.
MALE VOICE (little laugh). Is that a joke?
FLEABAG. I don’t know.
MALE VOICE. Shall we… start this interview again?
FLEABAG. Okay.
MALE VOICE. Thanks for coming in. Really appreciate you sending in your CV.
FLEABAG. No problem.
MALE VOICE. It was funny.
She laughs.
FLEABAG. Fuck you.
End.
PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE
Phoebe trained at RADA. For her debut play Fleabag, she has been awarded the Critics’ Circle Award (Most Promising Playwright), two Off West End Awards (Most Promising Playwright and Best Female Performance), a Fringe First and a Stage Award (Best Solo Performance). She also received a Special Commendation from the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award and Fleabag was nominated for an Olivier Award 2014 for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. She is currently adapting Fleabag for television and is working on a number of stage and screen projects. Work as an actor includes, for theatre: The One, Roaring Trade (Soho); Mydidae (Soho/Trafalgar Studios); Hay Fever (Noël Coward, West End); Tribes (Royal Court); Rope (Almeida); 2nd May 1997, Like A Fishbone, 66 Books (Bush); Crazy Love (Paines Plough). Television includes: Glue, Flack, The Revengers, Blandings, Scrotal Recall, Henry, Bad Education, London Irish, The Café, The Night Watch, How Not to Live Your Life. Radio includes: Vincent Price and the Horror of the English Blood Beast, Burns and the Bankers (Radio 4); Money (Radio 3). Film includes: Man Up, Albert Nobbs, The Iron Lady. Phoebe is Co-Artistic Director of DryWrite.
A Nick Hern Book
Fleabag first published in Great Britain as a paperback original in 2013 by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, in association with DryWrite and Soho Theatre
Reprinted with revisions in 2014
Reprinted with a new cover in 2016
This ebook edition first published in 2014
Fleabag copyright © 2013, 2014 Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Phoebe Waller-Bridge has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover photograph of Phoebe Waller-Bridge by Richard Lakos
Cover design by Ned Hoste, 2H
Typeset by Nick Hern Books, London
ISBN 978 1 78001 292 6 (ebook edition)
ISBN 978 1 84842 624 5 (print edition)
CAUTION This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Amateur Performing Rights Applications for performance, including readings and excerpts, by amateurs in the English language throughout the world should be addressed to the Performing Rights Manager, Nick Hern Books, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, tel +44 (0)20 8749 4953, e-mail [email protected], except as follows:
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United States of America and Canada: Independent Talent Group Ltd, see details below
Professional Performing Rights Applications for performance by professionals in any medium and in any language throughout the world (and amateur and stock performances in the United States of America and Canada) should be addressed to Independent Talent Group Ltd, 40 Whitfield Street, London W1T 2RH, tel +44 (020) 7636 6565
No performance of any kind may be given unless a licence has been obtained. Applications should be made before rehearsals begin. Publication of this play does not necessarily indicate its availability for amateur performance.
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