Nick Hern Books

new ways to put the audience in the centre of the experience.

Each experiment illuminated little tricks of how to construct a satisfying story.

How do you make an audience forgive a terrible crime?

I was obsessively looking for ways to surprise the audience,

In theatre, people come to you, or your characters. In TV, characters arrive in people’s living rooms,

feel like they were having a personal relationship with Fleabag

The power of comedy is astonishing to me

He whispers to me

TUBE RODENT. I have an enormous penis.

FLEABAG. I say: really? He says

TUBE RODENT. Yeah.

FLEABAG. I say: well that’s lucky, because I have an enormous vagina. He says

TUBE RODENT (confused). Awesome.

FLEABAG. We fuck behind the counter. He’s very bony. All corners. It’s like having sex with a protractor. He doesn’t come. He says I’m being too intense, whatever that means.

We turned the lights off and it’s quite dark now. He’s pulling on his trousers, looking for his phone to see if his friends are going out tonight. He’s wearing this pink-and-purpley paisley scarf. He looks like a lady.

He hops over to the window and leans on the sill. He turns his phone on and he screams. Really high-pitched. The light from the phone made Hilary’s eyes flash red in the darkness. She must have wandered over to the window while we were having sex.

oo made sense of the guinea-pig theme. She was all small and cute and put pictures of guinea pigs everywhere. I pretend they’re not there. Which I suspect makes the whole guinea-pig-café experience a bit creepy.
Boo was built a bit like a guinea pig. No waist or hips. Straight down. She rocked it. And she was beautiful. Tricky though. Jealous. Sensitive. But beautiful and… my best friend.

Boo always used to play music, read out horoscopes and shrivel crisp pack