Two titans of British TV came together this weekend when Fleabag took on Love Island.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge spoofed the “100 percent pure-grade trash” reality show while guest presenting US TV’s Saturday Night Live, taking aim at “weird” British accents and Americans’ inability to understand them.
Describing the contestant characters as “the hottest people from the worst towns”, the skit began with a voiceover: “You’ve heard an English accent. You’ve heard an Irish accent. Now hear all the little weirdies in between.”
Wearing prosthetics, posh Phoebe portrayed paediatric nurse Bella-Rosa from Essex.
“My dad’s a boxer and my mum’s a pub,” she said, then boasted: “Just got my lips done – I asked my doctor for an allergic reaction.”
“I’m from Murder-suicide, England,” a fellow contestant said, while another was “from the part of Ireland where the soil is bones”.
Poor attempts at Scouse and Scottish accents were subtitled, with the voiceover commenting: “They don’t even understand each other.”
Elsewhere on the show, Phoebe joked that Andrew Scott had caused a “horn storm” as her hot priest in Fleabag, and said: “I’m not a sex addict because I wrote Fleabag – but I did write Killing Eve because I’m a psychopath.”
On her awards success, she added: “Back in the day, horny women were to be feared – now they’re given Emmys.”
