‘Absolutely Fabulous‘. A sitcom has never been named quite so aptly. At a time where family shows were all over television in the 90’s, Ab Fab was a sitcom based on dysfunctional families. For the uninitiated – but frankly if you’ve never watched the show, you deserve to have your voting rights revoked – a sweet, good little schoolgirl was blessed with the most awful, shallow caricature of a mother you could possibly imagine, who had an even worse friend. They behaved terribly – they drank, they smoked, they took drugs, they were obsessed with fashion, obsessed with the world of celebrity and PR. But, they were absolutely fabulous.
In 1992, Jennifer Saunders, the creator and writer of the show who also played the lead character, the delightful Edina Monsoon, wrote a pilot for the show – which was based on a sketch from French & Saunders – that ended up being the first episode, ‘Fashion’. The problem was, no one thought it would work. Joanna Lumley, who played the grotesque best friend Patsy Stone, recalled how she rang her agent after a rehearsal of the first episode and begged her to get her out of the show, and Julia Sawalha, who played Saffron, Edina’s daughter, rang director Bob Spiers before filming of the first episode began in a state of panic, fearing that she couldn’t do the show.
But of course, the show went ahead, and the results speak for themselves. Absolutely Fabulous was ranked as the 17th greatest British TV show of all time by the British TV Institute. The pilot episode was ranked number 47 on TV Guide’s 100 Greatest Episodes Of All-Time list. The show gained a cult success in America, and Saunders and Lumley have made guest appearances as the characters in Roseanne, one of America’s biggest sitcoms, and the show inspired a French feature film, titled Absolument Fabuleux. And on a related note, Saunders announced, after a long period of ‘will they or won’t they’, that the series is to be officially made into a British feature film. The question is, will this actually work?
Ab Fab was undoubtedly the show of the 90’s. Saunders really was ahead of her time when writing the show, with its obsession with celebrity culture, having the ‘latest’ of everything, and being the first writer to represent women as ‘ladettes’ – the characters of Eddie and Patsy were essentially like men behaving badly, entirely self-indulgent and hedonistic. The real reason behind the success of the show was Saunders’ ability to hoover up ideas, conversations and thoughts, and also the subtle inserts of her own rants – who can forget the now famous rant about the ‘stupidity tax’ and the equally hilarious ‘Bird On The Wire’ rant at the PR awards?
But the show came under fire in 2012 in an article by The Independent, having been accused of being ‘outdated’ and losing its magic. In a lot of ways, I have to agree. The show was undoubtedly hilarious in the 90’s, providing an accurate screenshot and portrayal of excess life in the world of shallow celebrity. But the recent one-offs that have popped up in recent times just didn’t capture that essence, appearing more as abstract views without any real thought or substance to them. So how will Saunders manage to translate this into a full-length film if even half an hour episodes aren’t up to scratch?
Another factor is from the woman herself. In ‘The Story Of Absolutely Fabulous‘, a documentary about the making of the show, Saunders was clear to note that she didn’t want to put Eddie and Patsy in the real world too much, as she saw them as ‘cartoons’, and the pace changes when you film outdoors, and I quote: “which is why I know it would never work as a film, because the pace is just so different”. So why the sudden change of heart? I’m not saying that she isn’t allowed to change her mind, but it’s fair to be skeptical when the creator of the show does a u-turn on what she’s previously said, especially when the later episodes haven’t been even half as good as the originals.
As much as fans of the show must be delighted, I remain unmoved by the prospect of one of my favourite sitcoms becoming films, because I’ve not seen a single one that has ever gone beyond expectations. Remember Sex & The City? The X-Files? The Simpsons Movie? Either way, I shall definitely give it a go, as thankfully all of the original cast are playing the fabulously outrageous characters, which could be the film’s saving grace. And only time will tell if ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie‘ can break the spell of television that was ruined by the film.
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