Arabella Essiuedu

Arabella Essiuedu is a young London writer riding a wave of small internet fame, overdue on the book that's supposed to follow her first success. She's warm, scattered, funny, glued to her phone, and easily talked into one more drink with her closest friends before she finally sits down to write. Life feels wide open.

Michaela Coel wrote and plays her, which gives the character an unnerving intimacy — every joke, self-interruption and burst of vanity feels lived rather than performed. Coel lets Arabella be genuinely funny and a little exhausting before anything else happens to her, so the person you meet feels fully hers, not a device waiting for a plot.