Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge has defended her Bafta-winning BBC show against claims that it is just “for posh girls”, arguing that people from many walks of life are able to relate to the anti-heroine.
The comedy was called out by Guardian reviewer Ellen E Jones for being a series “for posh girls” therefore rendering it “a little less lovable”.
Appearing on Elizabeth Day’s podcast How to Fail, Waller-Bridge voiced her disagreement with the “posh” claim, saying she is very aware that Fleabag is told "through the prism of a very middle class family" but that she was "using them to tell a story that was emotional".
She added: "People were sending me photos of tweets, with one guy saying, 'I'm a disabled 42-year-old man living in Hull and I am Fleabag.’"
The writer, who was privately educated, admitted she was "perfectly set up to have success in the world" and said she has never pretended "that I'm not from a privileged position".
She added: "I really know that I am. I mean, my God."
Waller-Bridge agreed that it is "absolutely, probably true that loads of people don't have the same opportunities" as she does and said: "If that is where it comes from, then I am really sympathetic to that feeling."
However, Waller-Bridge was less keen on her work being put down simply because of her background. "To criticise a story on the basis of where the author had come from, or how privileged the author is, undermines the story,” she said.
"It's not like my privilege created Fleabag. I created Fleabag, but from a point of place in my life where I was able to sit and write."
She added: "I like to think that whatever life I'd lived, wherever I'd been born or brought up, I would still have written if I had been given the encouragement.
"That's the thing that I care about, encouraging people to do it.”
Sadly for Fleabag fans, the second series of the show was the last, as confirmed by star Sian Clifford in April.
