Fleabag

Fleabag is a rarity. It is a female lead, genre-hopping show that does not seem to have many comparable contemporaries. The only show I can think of that has a similar offbeat, darkly funny vibe is Channel 4's Flowers. 

Fleabag follows a woman in her early twenties who sees herself/ is seen as a bit of a Fleabag. She remains nameless for the entire run. Words like 'post-modern' and 'meta' come to mind, although I'm not entirely sure what they mean, to describe Fleabag's asides to the viewer and musings about fathers and feminist lectures.

The show grasps you with firstly with Phoebe Waller-Bridge's engaging and witty portrayal of Fleabag. At this point I thought the show was going to be a bit like a more sex and swear word laden version of Miranda. However it soon takes an increasingly dark turn. The discordant relation between tone and subject matter strikes a cord. The slightly off hand nature of this show and Flowers results in a literally strange sight, where the events look bizarre. Yet the feeling they demand in the viewer is actually somewhere close to the tragic absurdity that life is- these intelligent, genre bending shows capture something real amidst the madness. Find Fleabag on BBC IPlayer and Flowers on All4.

For a more eloquent analysis and talk about society things check out this review in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/aug/29/fleabag-tv-needs-far-more-seething-devastating-women