Fleabag Page 5

Quote: Aaron @ 20th March 2019, 12:28 PM

I'm enjoying this series immensely. I didn't get Series 1 at all, but may actually go back and revisit it as soon as I get the chance.

HMV have series 1 for £2.99 with any other purchase!

What sets Fleabag apart from other dramatic characters who make comments to camera is that, with Fleabag, it appears to be a genuine and quite intimate interaction between character and audience rather than just an actor spouting lines at the camera.

Miranda, take note!

Gripping stuff. A few of the comments to camera near the start were a bit much but the rest of the episode more than made up for it. Some people didn't like the ending of last week's and while I can see where they're coming from I'm not sure I agree, setting aside the lusting reactions on Twitter from the episode it works great as part of the story, as it did here.

Yep some wonderful moments, lovely to see Hugh Dennis back and Martin's failed insult "Lucky lawyer" and his tiny look of confusion was perfect, as was Olivia Colman's mini meltdown. If next week's is to be the final one ever, I have no idea how it will all wrap up!

And so ends one of the finest television series this century. Bittersweet finale, fitting the tone of the rest of the series, but with quite a few 'punch the air' moments. I so thought we were going to learn her name.

Quote: Sitcomfan64 @ 8th April 2019, 10:44 AM

I so thought we were going to learn her name.

It's more than fifty years since I first saw "A Fistful of Dollars" in which Clint Eastwood played a man with no name.

Not for one moment during those fifty years have I ever wondered what his name was, and not for one moment since I saw the first episode of "Fleabag" have I ever wondered what her name is.

In fact, John Wayne has starred in 142 films and I can remember his name in just two of them.

What's in a name, anyway? A fleabag by any other name would have just as many fleas.

It was a very good sitcom though.

Quote: Sitcomfan64 @ 8th April 2019, 10:44 AM

one of the finest television series this century.

I've just watched the final episode and I think you're right. Pleased

I just don't get it, I get that it's beautifully written and some of the performances are a joy but it doesn't make me laugh.

Surely that's the point, without laughter we have a drama, and if judged on the basis of a drama it lacks pathos and any real emotional punch.

It has the feel (to me) of a sitting at the table of a group strangers, they interact, toast times gone by and indulge in tales of old and simple old me does not get the joke.

Quote: Slim Pickings @ 9th April 2019, 1:05 AM

it doesn't make me laugh.

Surely that's the point, without laughter we have a drama

It depends very much upon what you mean by "laugh" and "laughter".

We all know what those words mean when they are used to indicate laughing that's audible to people in the vicinity of the person doing the laughing. Is that what you mean? It doesn't make you laugh out loud?

Or do you mean that you don't think it's funny?

"Fleabag" has never made me laugh out loud but, having said that, neither has "Seinfeld" - a comedy show that I regard as the most brilliantly wonderful thing ever broadcast on television. It's fabulously funny, fabulously entertaining, I absolutely and utterly love it and yet it's never made me laugh out loud.

In fact, having been a comedy fan since my childhood several decades ago, I can honestly say that relatively little on TV or elsewhere has ever made me laugh out loud. I do laugh out loud but certainly not once per day no matter how many comedy shows or stand-up comedians I watch. And yet, not only do I thoroughly enjoy comedy, I believe I enjoy it considerably more than most other people I've ever met.

I think you're right to describe "Fleabag" as a drama - but it's not serious drama in the normally accepted sense of that term. I think it's certainly a comedy, despite the fact that more than a little of it is tragedy.

I imagine that if I ever got together with Fleabag and a bottle of wine, one of us would say "You know what? This world is seriously f**ked up" and the other would say "I'll drink to that" and we'd both laugh.

When I watch Fleabag and her comedy-drama of a life from the relative safety and comfort of my armchair, my laughter hasn't burst out yet and perhaps it never will, but it's in there nevertheless.

Oh my goodness!! Just watched the last two episodes and was blown away; such a perfect ending! :)

I watched s01, then s02 this week and was laughing, then impressed, then depressed, then more depressed. Twitter wise women would understand it better than me.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has (flea)bagged another award.

At last night's Broadcast Digital Awards, in the section dedicated to shows not originally made for terrestrial TV, Fleabag was named best comedy - beating Man Like Mobeen, Death On The Tyne, This Country, Timewasters and Sally4Ever.

The girl done good (again)!

Still an awful show and my that esteemed competition Fleabag vanquished...Rolling eyes

Quote: Grumpy Young Bloke @ 30th July 2016, 2:01 PM

Hello all,

I have just watched Fleabag on iPlayer and just wondered what you guys thought if you'd seen it.

Personally, I liked the breaking of the 4th wall and it's got a very good cast although I felt that the actual humour was based on shock value which doesn't impress or inspire me. It lacked subtlety which I think if utilised, can be very powerful in comedy.

I'm all for equality between the sexes, and strong independent female lead characters but I didn't find any endearing qualities about her, effectively a bit of a ladette and a bit of a wreck. I actually want to like the characters I'm laughing at.

Of course being inappropriate is one of the cornerstones of situational comedy but the "jokes" here were essentially blatant masturbation, anal sex, effing and jeffing, using your boobs to get things and dropping the C bomb. It seemed relentless. Not wanting to sound like a comedy snob, because everything is fair game in comedy but I think there's a line to be crossed before it becomes crass. I found this to have crossed well over that line. It was trying too hard to shock you into laughing. You could have taken your brain out whilst watching it.

I didn't laugh once and it got me thinking about new comedy and what's getting picked up?

Is that the direction comedy seems to be going these days? Crudeness and pushing the limits of what can shock people into laughing? What about funny intelligent dialogue between two developed and likeable characters that audiences can relate to and get on board with? What about hilarious slapstick?

I think of the elements that I love about my favourite comedies:
Fawlty Towers: Hilarious dialogue, the clever weaving together of situations, slapstick, a great main character.
The Office: Fantastic inappropriate and cringe situations. Great dialogue. A likeable main character. Human traits and subtlety.
Alan Partridge: A great main character, hilarious and clever dialogue. Physical humour too.
Curb Your Enthusiasm: A shallow main character with no shame. Inappropriate situations at times and physical comedy too but not gratuitous and not trying too hard to shock.
Bottom: Manic slapstick.

Can you tell I'm not a fan of Fleabag?

What started off as a question has become an essay. Sorry about that but it has been somewhat cathartic.

Thanks for that. I need a lie down.

Well... I have just logged back onto this site after an absence that has lasted since the last time I logged in and I can tell you right now that I agree with the essence of what you say emphatically. Modern so called comedy is complete crap that panders to the banal brain-dead pricks that think being insulted and.........

Oh dear, that's where I left off years ago, I think....

Dads army is still going, why ???????

Quote: Akawanka @ 10th July 2019, 9:11 PM

Well... I have just logged back onto this site after an absence that has lasted since the last time I logged in and I can tell you right now that I agree with the essence of what you say emphatically. Modern so called comedy is complete crap that panders to the banal brain-dead pricks that think being insulted and.........

Oh dear, that's where I left off years ago, I think....

Dads army is still going, why ???????

In the great arc of history TV comedy of the last sixty or seventy years will probably all be lumped together. Historically speaking Dad's Army will end up in the same tiny footnote as Mrs Brown's Boys.