4. The show employs a theatrical device known as direct address, which involves Fleabag "breaking the fourth wall" on numerous occasions. What does this entail?
From Quiz "Fleabag": Series One
Answer:
Fleabag addressing the camera/audience directly
The series was adapted from the famed one-woman play of the same name, in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge spends most of its 80 minute run addressing the audience directly, a common device in such solo performances. The fourth wall is a theatrical convention - an imagined boundary separating the actors on stage from the audience. The convention operates similarly to a one-way mirror - the audience can see through the fourth wall and observe the events unfolding on stage, but the actors proceed unaware of the audience. When a performance breaks that illusion - like when an actor addresses the audience - it is known as "breaking the fourth wall".
Fleabag breaks the fourth wall constantly, interrupting her life with quick asides to the camera to share her inner-most thoughts and observations. The device lets us into her world and allows her to quickly build a rapport with the audience, which is useful because she's not the most sympathetic of characters (she exhibits loads of questionable behaviour throughout the series). We quickly become co-conspirators with Fleabag in her adventures, which adds to the enjoyment - it's fun to be let in on a secret - but it's just the illusion of intimacy, as we eventually learn that Fleabag is something of an unreliable narrator in that she has a secret that she is hiding from us.
As writer-performer Phoebe Waller-Bridge explained: "I knew I wanted to write about a young, sex-obsessed, angry, dry-witted woman, but the main focus of the process was her direct relationship with her audience and how she tries to manipulate and amuse and shock them, moment to moment, until she eventually bares her soul."