Tutorials Video

Phoebe Waller-Bridge: From Solo Fringe Theatre to Fleabag's Global Reach

Profile · ~14 min

Overview

Phoebe Waller-Bridge (born 1985) trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) before writing and performing Fleabag as a solo show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013, adapting it into the television series Fleabag (2016-2019), which won multiple Emmy Awards, and later co-writing the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021).

What You Need

Where to Start: Fleabag (2016-2019), Killing Eve season 1 (2018, creator), No Time to Die (2021, co-writer)

Steps

Actress training at RADA, not a screenwriting program

Waller-Bridge trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), one of Britain's leading drama schools, an educational background in performance rather than dedicated screenwriting, which nonetheless gave her a performer's instinct for voice, timing, and direct audience address that would define her later writing.

Writing and performing Fleabag as solo fringe theatre

Waller-Bridge wrote and performed Fleabag as a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013, developing the character's confessional, fourth-wall-breaking voice through live solo theatrical performance before any television adaptation existed. An unconventional origin for what would become one of the most acclaimed television series of its era.

Adapting Fleabag for television and creating Killing Eve

Waller-Bridge adapted Fleabag into a television series (2016-2019), preserving its direct-address confessional style, while also creating and writing the first season of Killing Eve (2018), a darkly comic spy thriller, demonstrating range across distinct tones and formats within a short span of years.

International recognition and co-writing a James Bond film

Fleabag won multiple Emmy Awards including Outstanding Comedy Series, and Waller-Bridge's rapidly growing industry reputation led to her being brought on as a co-writer for the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021), an unusually fast trajectory from solo fringe theatre performer to contributing to one of cinema's largest and longest-running franchises.

Pro Tips

Direct-address, fourth-wall-breaking narrative voice developed through solo live theatrical performance, later carried into television with distinctive effect in Fleabag.
A performer's instinct for comic timing and vocal rhythm, developed through RADA training and live fringe performance, directly shaping her dialogue writing across both comedy and drama.
Range across sharply different tones and genres (confessional tragicomedy in Fleabag, darkly comic spy thriller in Killing Eve, major action franchise in No Time to Die) within a compressed span of career years.
Using a small-scale, low-budget solo theatrical show as direct creative and commercial proof of concept before any television or film adaptation existed.

Knowledge Base

What You'll Learn

Waller-Bridge's RADA actress training, followed by writing and performing Fleabag as solo fringe theatre before its television adaptation's international acclaim, produced an unusually fast trajectory into major franchise screenwriting with No Time to Die.

Awards & Recognition

Fleabag won multiple Emmy Awards including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Waller-Bridge, and Killing Eve received numerous additional award nominations across its run.

Why Waller-Bridge Still Matters

Her development of Fleabag's confessional, direct-address narrative voice through solo live theatre before any screen adaptation existed offers a widely cited example of using minimal-budget live performance as a genuine creative proving ground for later television and film success.

Where This Fits

This guide covers one specific part of story and editing craft. The wider picture, hooks, stakes, structural templates, pacing against retention data, and how structure gets rewritten in the edit, is in Story Structure for YouTube: Hooks, Stakes, and Payoffs, which frames the discipline as a whole and links out to the detailed guides underneath it, including this one. If you are starting from scratch rather than solving a specific problem, read that first and come back here.

FAQ

Q: Did Phoebe Waller-Bridge train as a writer?
A: She trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) rather than in a dedicated screenwriting program, and developed Fleabag's distinctive voice by writing and performing it herself as a solo show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before any television adaptation existed.

Q: What other major projects has Phoebe Waller-Bridge written besides Fleabag?
A: She created and wrote the first season of the television series Killing Eve (2018) and co-wrote the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021), demonstrating range across television drama-comedy and major studio action franchise screenwriting.