Fleabag, Modernism, and New Television

This article reflects on the recent prominence of direct address—characters speaking directly to the camera—within new television. With particular reference to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag (BBC Three, 2016–19), the phenomenon of direct address is in this context situated amid the broader history of pictorial art, especially painting and the problem of theatricality first introduced by Denis Diderot in the eighteenth century and taken up in the last century by Michael Fried. The article concludes by showing how Fleabag’s use of direct address both fits neatly into this art history and moves beyond it, showing especially how Fleabag’s use of direct address substantially comments on modernity, on the status of art (especially new television), and even on the status of religion.