Searching online for a ticket to a screening of National Theatre Live: All About Eve (2019-also reviewed) I looked on the official NT site. Whilst going down the list of screenings,I saw a coming soon ad for Fleabag. With me and a friend both being fans of the TV series,I got two tickets (and at £20 each,most expensive cinema tickets I've ever gotten!) for her birthday,which we celebrated by seeing the beginnings of Fleabag.
View on the film:
Initiating the events which would lead to the TV series after she challenged her friend to write a sketch for a 10-minute section in a stand-up storytelling night, director Vicky Jones enhances the details giving in the production with a excellent, subtle use of sound,ringing in from the sound of bells ringing from a door opening and chatter in a pub, to the moans off videos on XXX sites,and the chilling noise of a distressed animal, all bringing out a fuller dimension to Fleabag's words.
Dressed starkly minimal on a empty set with one chair and the odd flashing light above to represent a Tube/taxi ride home, Jones uses the cameras offered in NT Live to bring a outstanding cinematic element to the production, switching camera angles from left to right when Fleabag re-enacts conversations she has had, and holding close-ups for the moment Fleabag drops her guard.
The lone figure to be on stage for the entire time, Phoebe Waller-Bridge gives an incredibly expressive, subtle performance as Fleabag. Working without the option of talking to camera in the middle of scenes as in the TV series, Waller-Bridge draws up everyone else in Fleabag's life with funny changes in vocal tone and facial expressions.
Stringing along a stream of consciousness made up of brilliant recollections to short-term sexual relationships and disastrous conversations, Waller-Bridge delicately tears Fleabag's shield of jokes to the raw pain laying underneath from the death of her best friend Boo,leading to a utterly chilling revelation over when Fleabag snapped.
Making it clear to see why this got picked to become a series, the screenplay by Waller-Bridge bases the jokes on being incredibly descriptive, hitting the hilarious punch-lines on each detail of the friends,lovers,and family she picks open,in the early life of Fleabag.
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