10 Best British TV Characters Of The Decade

In an age of superheroes and ultra glossy action films, as budgets and production values become ever more extravagant, it comes as something of a surprise that the UK’s most acclaimed show grew from a one woman play about a sex-crazed twenty-something with a guinea pig and a dead best friend. An inauspicious start, perhaps, but in the hands of Phoebe Waller-Bridge - arguably the industry’s most in-demand writer - something special was born.

Starring as the titular Fleabag, Waller-Bridge created one of the nation’s most relatable hot messes in many a year. Fleabag’s upper crust leanings belie a bevy of woes, a troubled past, a fondness for the drink, and an inability to avoid getting embroiled in the most painful of romantic entanglements. Waller-Bridge brings a Bugs Bunny-like impishness to her performance; she is a disruptive presence in the lives of just about anyone she comes across, creating chaos and leaving others to suffer the consequences.

Fleabag’s comedy is such that the darkness creeps up slowly; it’s not for a few episodes that you latch on to just how damaged and vulnerable the character really is. Here Waller-Bridge excels even more; over a scant six hours of screen time, she takes the character on a real journey, understated in its action but monumental in its emotional heft.