Milly Thomas: I couldn't find any decent roles for women so I had to write my own

An actor hailed as “the next Phoebe Waller-Bridge” today told how she began writing plays out of “sheer desperation” at the lack of decent parts for women.

Milly Thomas was compared to the star of BBC Three comedy Fleabag after staging her monologue Dust — which, like Waller-Bridge’s hit, involves talking “a lot about sex” — at Edinburgh Fringe.

Thomas, 28, is also starring in new BBC comedy Quacks alongside Rory Kinnear. She said: “I started writing out of sheer desperation. I was offered two-dimensional parts, women as plot devices, women as stereotypes.

“I thought I could wait for my face and body to be the right fit but I realised that way madness lies. So I threw myself in the deep end and doggy-paddled my way out.”

Thomas’s first play Clickbait sold out at Theatre503 in Battersea last year and she worked on BBC Three drama Clique with Jess Brittain.

She believes young actresses are finally getting meaty roles because the scripts are by women.

She added: “Talented writers like Jess and Kirstie Swain are getting their time. The industry still has a huge gender problem and a diversity and class problem. But the tide is changing.”

Dust is at Underbelly Cowgate until Sunday.