A List of Books and TV Shows Phoebe Waller-Bridge Recommends

from her latest video chat on Fleabag’s Set Design

After getting my best friend to watch Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, she immediately said she needed to get a glimpse of this genius’s brain by reading and watching things she recommended. So here’s a list of things Phoebe Waller-Bridge recommends:

TV Shows

• In the Scriptnotes Live with Ryan Reynolds interview she mentioned watching This Country, a mockcumentary on BBC. I am watching it. Most episodes are not as funny at first but you’ll be laughing your heart out in the latter half.
• PWB kept mentioning Donald Glover’s Atlanta in Star Wars interviews and prize-giving ceremonies with him. She also said she’s “perpetually in waiting for Donald Glover’s next work” in an interview with The New York Times.
• When asked the writer she most looks up to in The Hollywood Reporter Full Comedy Showrunner Roundtable, she answered Sally Wainwright and recommended her show Happy Valley.

Books

• East of Eden by John Steinback — she talked about this book in many interviews and recommended it to Jodie Comer as well. She said Jodie Comer would be perfect casting for a female character in the book.
• Ottolenghi Simple: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi — mentioned in Stephen Colbert interview