Phoebe Waller-Bridge To Adapt Dark Comedy Novel Sign Here For Prime Video

Prime Video will remain in the Phoebe Waller-Bridge business. The streaming home for Waller-Bridge's Emmy-winning series, "Fleabag," is eyeing a new series from her and novelist Claudia Lux based on Lux's debut novel, "Sign Here."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Waller-Bridge has renewed her three-year deal with Amazon, which was set to expire this September. As part of the renewal, she and Lux are developing a TV adaptation of "Sign Here," which the book's publisher, Penguin Random House, describes as a "darkly humorous, utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally)." The protagonist, Peyote Trip, works "in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell," where "the only drink on offer is Jägermeister." Though it might sound like a double entendre of the kind Fleabag might make, this feels like something that would be right up Waller-Bridge's alley.

In March last year, we heard that Waller-Bridge had a mystery project in development at Prime Video — there's no word on when that might see the light of day or if it's still going forward. It seems to be separate from "Sign Here," which will be written and co-executive produced by Lux.

Will Waller-Bridge star in the series? We don't know. She was last seen in a guest role capacity in Season 2 of the BBC comedy series Staged. Waller-Bridge was set to co-star in a TV adaptation of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" with Donald Glover but exited the series over creative differences. Her next role is opposite Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," which releases June 30.

Given its setting, it seems "Sign Here" will undoubtedly touch upon religion. In a 2019 interview with Los Angeles Times, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who identifies as an atheist, touched on her religious background and how it informed her attraction to the subject matter of "Fleabag." Among other things, she attended Catholic school and did some church drumming, and her mother worked in a vicarage for the Church of England.

You can probably draw a line from Waller-Bridge's self-confessed history of breaking out in "hysterical church giggles" to Season 2 of "Fleabag," in which her title character develops an attraction to Andrew Scott's unnamed "Hot Priest." While "Fleabag" was based on Waller-Bridge's own one-woman show, "Sign Here" is drawing on someone else's source material and will be at least a two-woman show, captained by her and Claudia Lux.

Here's the full book synopsis for "Sign Here," via Penguin Random House:

Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan — and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.

When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey's precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. And with the help of his charismatic coworker Calamity, he sets a plan in motion.

But things aren't always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell. And as old secrets and new dangers scrape away at the Harrisons' shiny surface, revealing the darkness beneath, everyone must face the consequences of their choices.