Claire

Living… in London, in her immaculately kept home with her husband and stepson.

Profession… head of finance for an international company. She likes her work, but like everything else, it makes her incredibly tense.

Relationship Status… married to her husband Martin, an art dealer, and the stepmother to his son Jake. Claire’s relationship with Martin is somewhat complicated—they’ve been married for a long time, and he “makes her laugh like nobody else does.” But he drinks a lot and, at least in the eyes of other people, can be sleazy. Claire’s sister describes him as one of those men “who is explosively sexually inappropriate with everyone, but makes you feel bad if you take offense because he was just being fun.” She frequently attempts to overlook the problems in their relationship, prioritizing her family over her work out of a sense of duty and a desire for security.

Challenge… her family. She’s got a tense and combative but somehow still close relationship with her sister Fleabag, in large part because they connect over grief for their late mother and their strained relationship with their father. Their father’s method of coping with having two motherless daughters in the wake of her mother’s death was, as Fleabag puts it, was “buying us tickets to feminist lectures, start f**king our godmother, and eventually stop calling.” Their conversations are often awkward and stilted, regularly ending in bickering because they’re both difficult people and polar opposites. At the same time, though, they know the most about one another and tell each other more than they tell anybody else. The things that make them so close are also the things that alienate them from other people. For instance, they find giving one another hugs incredibly uncomfortable and they’re not good at talking about their feelings honestly.

Personality… incredibly tightly wound, put-together, and repressed. Fleabag describes Claire as a “super high-powered perfect anorexic super sister.” Claire needs to be in control at all times. She hates surprises so much that she takes over and plans her own surprise birthday party to avoid others disappointing her. She loves her sister and her husband, though, even though she has a hard time saying that.