Absolutely Fabulous
A British sitcom about two aging, hedonistic friends.
Absolutely Fabulous (often shortened to Ab Fab) is a British television sitcom created and written by Jennifer Saunders, which premiered in 1992. It is based on the 1990 French and Saunders sketch "Modern Mother and Daughter" and stars Saunders as Edina Monsoon, a heavy-drinking PR mogul, alongside Joanna Lumley as her friend Patsy Stone. The series was revived after its initial 1992–1995 run with two more series and specials from 2001 to 2004, and again with three 20th anniversary episodes in 2011–2012.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Sitcom
- Based on
- "Modern Mother and Daughter" from French and Saunders, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders
- Writer
- Jennifer Saunders
- Starring
- Jennifer Saunders
- Joanna Lumley
- Julia Sawalha
- June Whitfield
- Jane Horrocks
- Theme music
- Bob Dylan; Rick Danko
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Series
- 5
Facts from the source article.
Production
Absolutely Fabulous began life as a "Modern Mother and Daughter" sketch on French and Saunders, where Jennifer Saunders played a mother named Adrianna and Dawn French played her daughter Saffron. The sketch featured a middle-aged single mother who behaved like a teenager and depended on her teenage daughter for both emotional and financial support, while the daughter acted like a middle-aged woman. The show has no link to the earlier film Eddie Monsoon: A Life?, a comedy play written by Saunders' husband Adrian Edmondson in 1984 for The Comic Strip Presents..., aside from the character's name. The name "Edina Monsoon" comes from Edmondson's surname and his nickname "Eddy Monsoon." In 2012, Saunders said she was inspired by the pop band Bananarama, whom she and Dawn French befriended after their Comic Relief collaboration in 1989. She described nights with Bananarama as some of the best of her life, and she got many jokes from them because they were heavy vodka drinkers, remembering one of them falling out of a cab bottom-first and hitting the road, which she thought was "class." Although Saunders and French's company produced Ab Fab, Dawn French only appeared once on the show, in a cameo during the first-series episode "Magazine," and later made a brief cameo in the 2016 film. French was originally meant to play Edina's daughter Saffron, but a younger actress, Sawalha, was cast instead. In 2016, Saunders recalled that Joanna Lumley was not what she had in mind for Patsy, as she originally saw the character as a "low-life journalist." After an awkward initial read-through where Saunders gave a subdued response, Lumley asked her agent to pull her from the project. Her agent convinced her to stay for the pilot, and the character was then reshaped around Lumley's performance and her background as a model. The BBC initially resisted the show. Producer Jon Plowman remembered that the Head of Comedy did not find drunk women funny. However, an assistant to the Head of Entertainment liked the pilot so much that she made copies and shared them with friends, and this positive buzz helped persuade the BBC to commission the series.
International broadcast
Absolutely Fabulous has made its way around the globe through a wide variety of broadcasters. In Portugal, RTP2 carried the show. Serbia first saw the first series in 1998 via local television stations, and later in 2004 on B92. The Czech Republic aired every episode, as did North Macedonia, where Sitel repeated them several times. The series enjoys popularity in the Netherlands and Flanders, with VPRO and Canvas still regularly rebroadcasting it. Sweden’s SVT initially aired all episodes, with other channels picking up reruns later. Germany saw it on the Franco-German network Arte and the gay-oriented TIMM. In France, it first appeared on pay TV via Canal Plus, then on cable channel Jimmy, later on terrestrial Arte, and now airs on France 4. Finland broadcast it on YLE TV1, Estonia on ETV. Poland aired two series on Wizja Jeden, followed by TVP3, TVN7, and BBC Entertainment. Australia’s ABC and cable channel UK.TV initially showed all series, moving to The Comedy Channel in 2007. The Seven network repeated the first three series, while ABC still airs it sporadically, including Christmas specials and occasional repeats of series five. ABC2 also runs repeats. In August 2016, Nine Network’s 9Gem aired the series to promote the film adaptation. New Zealand’s TVNZ broadcast all five series. India saw all five series plus specials on BBC Entertainment. In the United States, Absolutely Fabulous premiered on July 24, 1994, with a 12-episode marathon on Comedy Central. Some public television stations have broadcast it outside of PBS offerings, along with BBC America, Oxygen Network, and from 2011, the gay-oriented Logo. Canada has shown it on BBC Canada, CBC, The Comedy Network, and VisionTV. As of April 2021, the entire series is available on Amazon Prime in the US, though listed slightly differently, with all episodes accessible to Prime members. It is also on Britbox. Israel aired some episodes on Yes Plus and BBC Entertainment. Brazil broadcast all episodes on Eurochannel and Multishow in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and later on GNT in the 2010s.
Adaptations and related media
A proposed American remake that would have starred Carrie Fisher and Barbara Carrera was put into motion by Roseanne Barr but never materialised. However, Barr did incorporate many elements of the show into the ninth season of her eponymous show Roseanne, in which her character wins the lottery: Saunders and Lumley reprised their characters Edina and Patsy, and Mo Gaffney also appeared in the episode, though not as her character Bo. Two later American sitcoms, Cybill and High Society, also adapted elements of Absolutely Fabulous for the American audience. It was announced on 7 October 2008 that an American version of the series was in the works. The series was tentatively called Ab Fab and relocated to Los Angeles. Saturday Night Live writer Christine Zander worked on the new scripts and would have been executive producer along with Saunders and BBC Worldwide's Ian Moffitt. Sony Pictures Television, BBC Worldwide, and indie Tantamount were producing the new series for Fox, which greenlighted the pilot as a possible Fall 2009 entry with Kathryn Hahn as Eddy and Kristen Johnston as Patsy. In May 2009, Fox decided not to commission a full series. The stage for the kitchen in Ab Fab was subsequently used as the stage for the shop in the British comedy Miranda. Miranda Hart, creator of the show, had previously appeared on Absolutely Fabulous. Mirrorball was a pilot set in the London theatre scene, starring the cast of Absolutely Fabulous as alternative characters. While writing and filming the show, Saunders was inspired to revive Absolutely Fabulous for a fourth series, which resulted in her abandoning Mirrorball. It was eventually aired as a television special and is included as a special feature on the fourth series DVD. Some original characters from Mirrorball feature in the fourth series. A French film inspired by Absolutely Fabulous, titled Absolument fabuleux, was released in 2001. It was written and directed by Gabriel Aghion, and starred Josiane Balasko as Eddy and Nathalie Baye as Patsy. Saunders had a small cameo alongside Catherine Deneuve as a spectator at a fashion show. Amanda Lear was asked to play the part of Patsy but turned it down laughingly, saying she had "already lived it".
Home media
Absolutely Fabulous first hit shelves in the UK on VHS, with BBC Video handling distribution and a final eight-tape box set for Series 1 through 4 arriving in November 2002. Across the Atlantic, CBS/FOX bundled the first two series together on Laserdisc in 1995, put out Series 3 on its own the next year, and Image Entertainment released The Last Shout in 1997. DVD releases followed, including a five-disc set called The Complete DVD Collection: Series 1–4 in 2002. BBC Video and, after 2004, 2 Entertain distributed most of these, though Vision Video and Universal Studios handled The Last Shout. The whole series can also be streamed on iTunes. A curious quirk: when the first three series got reissued on DVD, their cover photos didn’t match the content. Series 1’s cover used a shot from the Series 3 episode Jealous, Series 2’s from the Series 3 episode Doorhandle, and Series 3’s from the Series 2 episode Poor. Every other release, including the original VHS tapes, kept the imagery correct. In North America, BBC Video and Warner Home Video put out all episodes on DVD, including a complete set titled Absolutely Everything. The Last Shout and Gay, which came out separately in the UK, were packaged together in the US as Absolutely Special in 2003. Another feature-length special, White Box, was made exclusively for the American market; it didn’t reach the UK until 15 November 2010, when it was included in the Absolutely Everything box set. Additional releases include Absolutely Not, a collection of bloopers and outtakes, and Absolutely Fabulous: A Life (sold in the US on VHS as Ab Fab: Moments), a mockumentary that mixes 15 minutes of new footage with series clips. Both of these came out only on VHS in the UK, though the latter appeared as a bonus feature on the American Absolutely Everything box set. For streaming, Hulu carries the entire series except for The Last Shout, Gay (also known as Absolutely Fabulous in New York), and White Box. Netflix also offers the series. Back in the UK, BBC Video handled all VHS releases except The Last Shout, which Vision Video put out, with the final VHS release arriving in 2002.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who stars in Absolutely Fabulous?
Absolutely Fabulous stars Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks.
How many episodes of Absolutely Fabulous are there?
Absolutely Fabulous has 39 episodes across 5 seasons.
When did Absolutely Fabulous end?
Absolutely Fabulous last aired on 17 December 1992.
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