The stars will be joining Andrew Scott (Sherlock) as new cast members for the second series of the hit BBC Three comedy.
“Phoebe Waller Bridge cannot be ignored,” said Dame Thomas. “She manages to hit core issues with sledgehammer brutality as she trips along with a spring in her step.”
Fiona Shaw added, “Phoebe's mind is like nothing else.”
Andrew Scott joins a returning cast which includes Olivia Colman (Godmother), Sian Clifford (Claire), Bill Paterson (Dad), Brett Gelman (Martin), Jenny Rainsford (Boo) and Hugh Skinner (Harry).
According to Executive Producer Lydia Hampson, Waller-Bridge began writing the new series in January this year, and the results, promises BBC Comedy boss Shane Allen, are “knockout”.
The spy drama is a "laugh-out-loud funny and edge-of-your-seat gripping" dramatic thriller revolving around a psychopathic assassin and the women charged with hunting her down.
Now's a great time to get into writing for TV. There have never been more opportunities for scripted programming. To stand out from the crowd, an idea should seem original and distinctive.
While the breadth of programming has increased, the traditional formats have remained dominant. Your writing should fit the standard models for a mini-series, a serial or an episodic series; 30 minutes for comedy, 60 minutes for drama.
It is a motto she has picked up from Fleabag’s creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
“We wanted to shoot it like a drama and cut it like a comedy,” she explains. “Sometimes it feels like drama is comedy’s big older brother.”
For Hampson and Waller-Bridge, it wasn’t enough to create a ‘typical’ comedy. “We were trying to go for the ambition of drama, but not at the expense of the laughs.”
The news was announced at the Edinburgh TV Festival during a panel discussion with Phoebe Waller-Bridge and BBC Controller of Comedy, Shane Allen.
It was revealed that the second series will arrive on the online platform in 2019, following a hugely successful first series about a sharp and crude twenty-something woman living in London who is trying to come to terms with a personal tragedy.
The first series was adapted from Waller-Bridge's multi award-winning one-woman stage show of the same name, which was first shown at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013.
Killing Eve is a dramatic thriller revolving around a psychopathic assassin and the woman charged with hunting her down.
Waller-Bridge, who is best known for her RTS Award-winning comedy Fleabag, spoke to the RTS about the project earlier this year.
“It’s basically a game of cat-and-mouse between two women who in a lot of ways are very opposite to each other, but who become obsessed with and by each other,” she explained.
The RTS Programme Awards, which are chaired by The Foundry CEO, Alex Mahon, honour excellence across all genres of television programming and recognise exceptional actors, presenters, writers and production teams as well as the programmes themselves.
“I’d always seen it as a one-off,” she says. “It feels so fragile. I’d hate to ruin it, to extend it longer than it is, [but] I think I’ve found a way.”
Waller-Bridge was nominated in the Breakthrough category of the RTS Programme Awards 2017, alongside Bake Off’s Nadiya Hussain and documentary-maker Philip Wood, for her work on Fleabag.
