Television series
Fleabag
A brittle, grieving Londoner runs a failing café and burns through friendships, family and men while narrating her own worst behaviour straight to camera. It's a confession booth disguised as a sitcom — filthy, hilarious, then suddenly devastating. Best for anyone who wants comedy with a trapdoor underneath it.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like comedy that stares straight at grief, sex and family mess without flinching, and you enjoy a narrator who breaks the fourth wall to confide in you like a sharp friend at the bar.
Skip it if you want jokes to stay light and bouncy, since this one keeps circling pain and awkwardness, and its frankness about sex and bodies may feel like too much at times.
What it asks of you: Each episode runs about half an hour over two short seasons of twelve episodes in total, so it moves quickly, but you have to keep up with its sudden turns from giggles to something heavier.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
This Way Up2019
Aisling Bea plays a woman freshly out of a breakdown, joking her way through grief with the same manic charm and terrible decision-making. Warmer than Fleabag but cut from the same cloth.
But Gentler and less formally daring — no fourth-wall tricks, just very good writing about being a mess.
I May Destroy You2020
Michaela Coel turns trauma into something funny, furious and completely unpredictable, narrating her own unraveling with unflinching honesty. Bolder and darker than Fleabag, but built from the same confessional nerve.
But Heavier subject matter than Fleabag ever goes — this one earns its laughs the hard way.
Catastrophe2015
Sharon Horgan doing what she does best: brutal honesty about relationships, dressed up as a sitcom. Fast, filthy, and unafraid to let its characters be genuinely awful to each other.
But Less formally inventive, more traditional two-hander sitcom structure — no direct address, no grand reveal.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Fleabag
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Alfie1966
Fleabag's direct-to-camera confessions have a direct ancestor here: a charismatic Londoner narrating their own bad behaviour straight to the audience, until the joke curdles into guilt.
Michael Caine's charming cad turns to the camera and lets you in on every seduction and self-justification, decades before Fleabag made that trick her own. Same wink, same eventual reckoning.
But Dated gender politics that the film doesn't fully interrogate — it's the source code, warts and all.
More like this (8)
Chewing Gum2015
Michaela Coel's first show is cruder and cheaper-looking but has the same reckless comic energy — a young woman narrating her own chaotic sexual awakening with total lack of shame.
But Broader, sillier, and rougher around the edges — this is early work, not polished prestige comedy.
Motherland2016
Sharper and more ensemble-driven, but the same appetite for skewering polite social performance and the lies women tell to survive each other. Consistently, quietly vicious.
But No emotional gut-punch waiting underneath — this stays comedy all the way down.
Broad City2014
Different city, different mess, same commitment to a woman being gloriously, unapologetically ridiculous. Less grief, more joy, but the same refusal to make its heroine likeable on anyone else's terms.
But Much sillier and more absurdist — don't expect the emotional depth charge Fleabag delivers.
Enlightened2011
Laura Dern plays a woman who has completely lost the plot and is trying to reassemble a self out of the wreckage, narrating her own delusions with painful sincerity.
But Slower, sadder, and far less jokey — this is drama that occasionally lets itself laugh, not the reverse.
Grace and Frankie2015
A gentler cousin — two women rebuilding identity after their lives collapse, with real teeth under the sitcom gloss. Proof that messy women get funnier, not tamer, with age.
But Much cosier and more conventional — no fourth wall, no darkness lurking under the punchlines.
Please Like Me2013
An Australian dramedy that swings from broad comedy to real grief in the space of a scene, with the same tonal whiplash and a similarly self-sabotaging lead.
But Lower budget and lower profile — it has the tonal DNA but not the polish or the buzz.
BoJack Horseman2014
Same engine as Fleabag: a magnetic, funny, self-destructive lead using jokes as a smokescreen for grief, in a wildly different-looking package.
An animated sitcom about a washed-up horse-actor that becomes one of the most honest portraits of self-loathing on television, using cartoon absurdity to sneak past your defences.
But Animation and talking animals as a delivery system for despair is a hard sell if you want realism.
Stories We Tell2012
Where Fleabag fictionalises confession for laughs, this documentary does the real thing: a woman implicating herself directly to camera while unpicking her own family's buried truths.
Sarah Polley turns a documentary about her own family's secrets into a meditation on memory, guilt and who gets to tell the story — filmed with the same intimate, implicating camera.
But No jokes, no fiction to hide behind — it's a real family's grief, laid out plainly.
People
Cast
Writing
- Phoebe Waller-BridgeCreator
Production
- Harry WilliamsExecutive Producer
- Jack WilliamsExecutive Producer
- Phoebe Waller-BridgeExecutive Producer
- Hsinyi LiuLine Producer
- Lydia HampsonProducer
Recommended by
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