Fleabag

A few episodes in, there's still time to catch up with the strange, bleak, hilarious Fleabag, lurking on iPlayer. Written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Crashing), the eponymous heroine speaks straight to camera, and is, by turns, cynical, playful, impulsive, bitter, haunted and vulnerable, as she has casual sex with inadequate men, masturbates to Obama speeches, worries that her anus is super-sized, runs her financially ludicrous cafe business (Fleabag has the least realistic sitcom lifestyle since the cast of Friends), sponges from her uptight sister (Sian Clifford), and steals stuff from her odious stepmother (Olivia Colman, dripping passive-aggressive).

There are inevitable comparisons with Sharon Horgan and Lena Dunham, but Waller-Bridge seems determined to plough her own eldritch and mischievous furrow. Last week Fleabag attended a ghastly "Female-only 'Breath of Silence'" retreat, coming across her bank manager (Hugh Dennis) at his own grisly "Better-Man" event ("I'm just a very disappointing man").

At times, Fleabag, still grieving, flashes back to her dead best friend, at which point she's exposed as the walking, talking weeping sore she truly is. Fleabag isn't perfect (this episode was the lightest on belly laughs so far) but it's witty, textured, poignant and offbeat - a hidden gem it would be a pity to miss.