‘Fleabag’s return to our screens has saved British comedy’

Like an extremely sarcastic knight in shining armour, Fleabag returned to our screens this week and saved British comedy.

After a run of dross I was beginning to fear for the state of what was once an essential part of our national life.

Laughs these days come mostly from entertainment shows like The Great British Bake Off or panel games like Would I Lie To You?

And with sitcoms as dire as Mrs Brown’s Boys , which is as funny as a leaking toilet – in fact that sounds like one of its plot twists – the question has been asked: Do we really need sitcoms?

Yes we do! Just like tea and umbrellas, they are utterly necessary.

Then, just like our buses, suddenly several turned up at once.

Celebrity PR comedy Flack, if you’re not watching it why not? series two of Derry Girls, asylum seeker sitcom Home, Ricky Gervais’s After Life, and – most brilliant of all – Fleabag.

Creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a genius, bringing sharp wit and dark humour in a style we’ve not seen before.

It’s as genre-busting as her TV ­adaptation of spy thriller Killing Eve.

Monday’s BBC3 show began exactly 371 days, 19 hours and 26 minutes after the disastrous series one finale when Fleabag was rejected by her entire family.

“This is a love story,” she smirked to camera while cleaning up her bleeding nose in a posh restaurant toilet.

Any panic that this series wouldn’t live up to the first ended in that moment.

What followed was the perfect passive aggressive family dinner party to celebrate Godmother and Dad’s engagement.

Oscar winner Olivia Colman is ­wonderful – obviously – as Godmother, all smiles, put-downs and snobbery.

It’s hard to pick my favourite withering one liner: “You looked like a boy,” will do. New addition Andrew Scott – Sherlock villain Moriarty – was a cool, sweary priest who drank tequila and is clearly a potential love interest for Fleabag.

Sian Clifford was staggeringly affected as Fleabag’s sister Claire, responsible for the most shocking line of the episode.

“Get your hands off my miscarriage,” she yelled. We shouldn’t laugh, yet had to.

Making us squirm is what Waller-Bridge does so brilliantly, so often.

Bill Paterson plays Fleabag’s dad, who gave her the birthday present of a voucher for therapy. Brett Gelman is creepy, ­obnoxious brother-in-law Martin, who, happily, got a punch in the face.

Flashbacks to the death of her friend Boo, Martin’s fumbled pass and the ­fall-out with Claire remind us of Fleabag’s repressed misery.

And just when it’s all too much, an aside to camera about pine nuts brings us back.

Fleabag is just what British comedy needs. Long may she reign.

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