Absolutely Fabulous

The movie is surprisingly good. I didn’t think it would be. It’s short too.

Patsy lived in a flat above Oddbins for most of the show and then moved in somewhere around series 4 or 5.

Basement kitchens are common in London terraces, although it's not that common in semi-detached houses like Edina's.

Karen Walker was an exact mix of Pats and Eddie.

I didn't really like the movie. It was one of those ones where they stuff it with cameos and it cheapens it.

I feel sorry for Saffy. All the crap she does for her mom and Serge is still Edina's favorite.

She's not my favorite character, but I love Kathy Burke as Magda, Patsy's editor at British Vogue. Her thick accent is hard to understand, but she has many of the best lines, and I love how the British audiences just go mad when she delivers them.

Because Saffy was no fun. She was a nice sweet girl, but she was a drip.

I always think you can understand the three central character as the Freudian divisions of the mind, but for a gay man.

Edina is the Ego, Patsy is the Id, and Saffy is the Superego. Of course no gay man likes Saffy, because she's the part always urging restraint, while Patsy is the favorite, because she wants everyone to have a good time. Edina is caught between the two.

AbBump

Kathy Burke/Magda Is definitely a British comedy character. The accent and the type of lines she delivers are funnier to Brits. Edie and Patsy are much more American - broad comedy. It was a great show - for the time. I think they tried todo a US remake with Christine Baranski and - Cybil Shepherd(?) - and it’s was horrible. Kinda like the US Kath & Kim.

[quote] with Christine Baranski and - Cybil Shepherd(?)

This would piss off Cybil Shepherd so much.

Or even Cybill Shepherd.

And "Cybill" was sort of fun, for a while. And the other AbFab copy, "High Society," was....well, fab!

I saw where there was a US TV movie version about 10 years ago with Kathryn Hahn as Eddie and Kristen Johnston as Patsy.

Yikes.

That was a pilot, I think R13. I don't think it was ever aired on TV (had it been picked up, it would have been on Fox.)

Bo always cracks me up.

I always hated Bubble.

R15 yes!

I loved whatever episode it was where Bo is talking to someone and suddenly speaks into.....her sweater or something, as if she's being recorded......

"The goose flies at night!"

If they were doing a basement conversion in London now it'd be more like this.

Loved the series -Was pleasantly surprised by the film. Saffy singing Janis Ian in a gay club sort of said it all...

[Quote] Because Saffy was no fun. She was a nice sweet girl, but she was a drip.

Saffy is the responsible parent. Edina is the irresponsible child of the 70s.

I love this show and tried rewatching the series, but I couldn't take the laugh track. Can't they edit that shit out?

Roseanne bought the rights to do the US version but it never came to pass. That Shepard/Baranski show on CBS was a cheap rip off.

OP many London residences in the historical center have facades which are protected and the only way for you to renovate is to do your basement.

r2, A lot of homes had kitchens in basements. Think "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Downton Abbey." I think it was common in brownstones in the US too before many of them were subdivided and that door under the stairs became the "garden apartment."

I once stayed in a house in London near Victoria Station and the kitchen was in the basement.

[quote]with Christine Baranski and - Cybil Shepherd(?)

[quote]This would piss off Cybil Shepherd so much.

Yes, the show was called Cybill!

Patsy's apartment above the Oddbins was a tiny, filthy, dump.

Patsy herself suggested to the Oddbins owner that they branch out and put the spirits upstairs (in her apartment). I think we only saw it once, at the beginning of "The Last Shout".

"I feel sorry for Saffy. All the crap she does for her mom and Serge is still Edina's favorite."

That is the way a lot of mothers are, the son can do no wrong, the daughter can do no right.

I thought I'd hallucinated this, but Pats and Eddie did appear on the Roseanne show once. It was truly awful, as I recall, and was a reminder what a good writer Jennifer Saunders was.

R29, theywere on Roseanne after she won the lottery when it was god awful. Patsy and Eddie were the only bright spot at that point. I remember one of them calling Jackie a drag queen.

I cracked up at the sight of Kate Moss walking out of the ocean with a lit cigarette and a glass of champagne during the AbFab movie.

The movie was pleasant enough, if a bit unnecessary.

[quote] I cracked up at the sight of Kate Moss walking out of the ocean

The Thames.

Patsy and Edina go grocery shopping, never having set foot in a grocery store before. Edina stops as soon as she enters the store and waves her list in the air, shouting "Hello?" as if someone will come and do her shopping for her. The first time I saw that I howled. One little moment that sums up Edina perfectly.

R33 are you sure? I thought she washed up on a shore somewhere near where they were hiding out.

you've spoiled the movie ending!

[quote] I thought she washed up on a shore somewhere near where they were hiding out.

She emerges.

From water.

River water.

The Thames.

In pre 20th cent urban homes the kitchen was most often in the basement because at that time if you were well off enough to own a row house you were also well off enough to afford a few servants. Middle class families had cooks. The kitchen was in the basement and the entrance under the front stoop was for deliveries and the help. The family and guests used the front door. The stoop entrance opened into a floor with a reception room and a dining room. The front and back parlors were a flight above, and bedrooms were on the floors above that. The kitchen was often directly under the dining room and usually they were connected by a dumb waiter.

Cybill had its moments, but they were few and far between and mostly attributed to Baranski who seemed to be the only person on that show with comic timing. Cybill even had the habit of laughing or smirking at her own punchlines. Awful.

Ab Fab has a few dud episodes, but its highs were much higher and the general concept is pure hilarity to begin with. It was a well written, perfectly cast show about some of the most morally reprehensible people on earth. In many ways, I think it's heir might be It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia although the characters in that show do tend to go to work more often, but they still all live in their self-absorbed little bubbles.

There was another cheap ripoff with Jean Smart and that woman (Mary McDonnell? was that her name?) from "Dances With Wolves"... and Robert Sean Leonard was in the Saffy role!

Which episode was that, r34? Season and episode number, please. TIA.

Why all these threads about a tired old show?

R41 it's the one where she cuts costs and gets rid of the driver and ends up in court, so it's probably the episode titled "Poor".

The "Why, oh why, do we pay taxes?" speech in "Poor" always makes me pee.

r41 it was the episode titled "Poor" from season 2. My personal favorite.

r44 that speech is one of the best moments ever.

"We're not all stupid! We don't all need nursemaiding!"

R41, it's "Poor". Series 2 Episode 5. One of the best episodes of the show.

Don’t bother with anything past The Last Shout. 90s Ab Fab is the only good Ab Fab. 2000s Ab Fab was embarrassing.

One snap of my fingers and I can raise hemlines so high the world’s your gynecologist.

I seem to be the only person who preferred the three revival episodes of circa 2012 to the original - the one with Saffy's heavy dykey friend from jail who comes to stay (Edina talking to her in "ghetto speak") and the endless chauffeur driven drives to the Spa on the next corner.

"Darling...Stella McCartney!

Patsy grabs the wallet, puts it to her ear "Hello, Stella!"

"You cannot make rock 'n' roll on a diet of Quorn, V-8 Juice and Linda Bloody McCartney's "Tofu Treats!"

R40 Yes, we know.

We knew way back at R12, and no, Robert Sean Leonard was *not* in that show.

Just the sight of Eddy falling out of the car drunk in the early episodes still makes me giggle.

R38 Nailed things.

Prior to late 19th century and some of early 20th row/town/terraced or whatever connected homes in UK, New York, SF, and elsewhere were built and designed for homes with servants. Madam or Sir never went downstairs to the kitchens or basements; that was domain of servants; and if there was any major problem housekeeper or butler dealt with things. Usually (but not always) such homes have what have become known as "English Basements". These are floors partially below and above ground that have separate entrances/exits. Absent a back or side alley this is where servants, tradesmen, goods, etc... entered house.

By the early 1900's however rising prosperous middle classes caused builders to target them with row houses that were livable with few or no servants. Prime difference usually was kitchens were carved out of ground or first floor spaces to make running a home easier and more convenient without help.

Given fashions prior to WWI it must have been exhausting for any woman lady or servant to cope with all those stairs between floors several times a day. Maids did have plainer dresses with shorter skirts; but they still wore corsets

In the movie Kate Moss falls into the river Thames in London, UK and steps out of the river Seine in Paris, France where she happens to meet Jean Paul Gaulthier.

No one did high class bitch like Kate O'Mara.

Magda!

Katy Burke is from "Sarf" (south London), and Magda's accent was her own normal cockney.

Jane Horrocks (Bubble) comes from Lancashire (north west England), and again uses her own natural accent for Bubble's voice. JH does admit to sometimes speaking with a more posh accent normally however.

Basically every one else of main ensemble (mother, a, Patsy, etc...) used their own normal (south England middle class) accent.

Catriona and Fleur (Paty's co-workers at magazine) have slightly posh accents, perhaps as an indication that many magazine editors, directors, etc... are daughters of good families, went to best schools, but aren't exactly sharpest tools in box.

Magda is easy to understand actually, there are far thicker cockney accents .

Magda!!

R7

That was point of entire show from start. Roles were reversed with Saffy being the responsible "adult", while a behaved like a spoilt immature child.

This being said am inclined to agree with you that Saffy was really uptight. She's cool with her father being gay and all; but her mother having sex, doing drugs, and otherwise having a bit of fun drives Saffy up a wall.

Saffy's childhood sounded dreadful; it cannot have been easy growing up knowing from start you gate crashed your mother's party, and worse neither she nor her bf from hell have ever forgiven or forgotten. Never understood why Saffy just didn't go live with her grandparents or father. Well there wouldn't have been a show, but.......

The roots of AbFab were in the French and Saunders show. It was a recurring sketch with Dawn French as Saffy.

"You only work in a shop you know, you can drop the attitude"!

Have used that line often!

[quote] It was a recurring sketch with Dawn French as Saffy.

No, it was a one-off. “Modern Mother and Daughter”.

R12. I loooooved "High Society" with Jean Smart and Mary McConnell. Hysterical! America didn't catch on, which was a shame. Damn funny show.

R60

Yes, and the sketch was about a mother-daughter relationship where roles were reversed. That is as one said; daughter was responsible one, while mother was anything else but. From that sketch Ab Fab was developed.

I thought one of the most annoying characters was the Asian friend of Saffy's. Why she went insane I don't exactly understand.

Uhh ... ABFAB on Comedy Central wasn't "first run," OP.

[quote] This being said am inclined to agree with you that Saffy was really uptight. She's cool with her father being gay and all; but her mother having sex, doing drugs, and otherwise having a bit of fun drives Saffy up a wall.

There is a good reason for that which you failed to mention: Her mother's BFF, Patsy Stone. Eddie always sides with Patsy when Patsy and Saffy have an argument or fight. And Saffy is well aware that it's Patsy that gets Eddie in all sort of trouble (sex, doing drugs, and otherwise) and is a bad influence in general. Of course, she has no issues with her Dad in that way since his boyfriend doesn't treat her or her Dad badly. And both Dad and boyfried have a strained relationship with a and rather take Saffy's side than Eddie's.

Series one and two are by far the best. Then four, then three, then five, then that awful last season of 3 specials in 2012 which was pretty bad.

The "specials" are all pretty awful, though they all have some funny bits. Well, except maybe for "Gay"....I can't think of anything very funny in that one. And, "White Box" is sheer shite except for the ending.

I've taken up guacamole you guys (start to show steps of salsa). Anyone in for a tchapukino?

My favorite scene

R70 That was a link to a video of bloopers.

I’ve lived in London since the mid-90s. I think the joke with Magda is that you’re not supposed to be able to understand her (much) and then of course her being the editor of “Vogue” and being from a working class background. It was just about the time McQueen came to prominence as well.

This is the one sweetie!

R63 Pity, because that show looks fantastic. In 1995 North America just wasn't ready for its own warts and all version of Ab Fab. If it had come along a couple of years later, during that decadent phase that preceded the Millenium (think Sex and the City) it would have done much better I think.

Middle class terrace/row houses.

Perhaps most famous would be 50 Elliscombe Road, Charlton, South-East London, used as setting for British television series "1900 House".

Area was developed in late 1800's to provide middle class housing for persons such as civil servants, teachers, etc.... Notice lack of service entry from front though there is a basement. Kitchen and scullery are on ground floor.

Didn't Edina burn Titi KaKa, that's why she went crazy?

- "New Year's Eve resolution Jacs?"

- "I think, just to resist the surgeon's knife for yet another year."

I thought the movie was as bad as the show was brilliant. I’ve watched a lot of interviews with cast members and many of them including Jennifer Saunders have discussed how Saunders wrote most of the scripts at the very last minute, totally unplanned and on a whim under pressure. I think the movie suffered from having been too thought out and planned by the studio. The erratic nature of the show’s writing plus the performances were what made it brilliant. I totally agree that the star cameos in the movie helped to ruin it. Eddie and Patsy are the stars. Who needs Kate Moss?

Regarding Eddie’s abusive and negligent parenting, one sort of subversive quality of the show I have never seen discussed is the idea that Eddie and Patsy are total hippies who never grew out of their hippieness—obviously, and that’s what makes them so terrible as adults. During the 90s and in decades to come, baby boomers have been criticized for having turned their backs on the hippie values of their youths, and Eddie and Patsy show us what would happen if these people had remained hippies throughout their lives. While the young people of the 60s and 70s preached peace and love, they were actually behaving in totally self-indulgent and oftentimes even self-destructive ways that aren’t really sustainable for parents who want to raise decent human beings. What happens when a mother lives for free love and experimental drugs and personal adventure? Eddie Monsoon happens!

According to an article published in The Times, the character of Edina was based on Lynne Franks.[7] Franks believed Saunders had observed her and her children in detail after joining them on a family holiday. Josh Howie, Franks' son, reported that his mother was upset because one of her best friends "had taken the piss out of her" in a TV show.[7]

Wiki

worth a watch

R28

It's only a television show, but reading into the psycology of Edddie preferring Serge to Saffy remember one thing; Serge besides being her first born was welcomed during Ed's first marriage to Marshall. Saffy by Edina's own admission was a "miscalculation" or otherwise not exactly planned nor wanted.

Edina had married Justin and things for her (and Patsy for that matter) seemed to be on an upswing post divorce. Then along came Saffy, who Edina planned to put up for adoption from start.

At some point in his teens Serge got fed up with Edina and went to live with his father, this even as Marshall continued to pay Eddie child support for a child he was supporting.

Were this a real life family Saffy's life could only have been made worse by the departure of Serge. It would have left her as primary target for Edina's venom and abuse, not to mention blame for her mother's "pride and joy" leaving.

While found original run of Ab Fab hysterical, cannot watch much of it today without cringing. Eddie and Patsy are horrible towards Saffy, bordering on abusive.

Take that back, there was abuse; Patsy burning Saffy with cigarette, Patsy drugging up Saffy with nicotine patches, Patsy selling Saffy into white slavery....

Kathy Burke!

If there's anyone would love to chat with over pints in a pub.......

They do say essence of great acting is not to stray too far from who one is; well Magda and Kathy weren't too far off.

“Eddie and Patsy are horrible towards Saffy, bordering on abusive.

Take that back, there was abuse; Patsy burning Saffy with cigarette, Patsy drugging up Saffy with nicotine patches, Patsy selling Saffy into white slavery....”

And the Sherlock Holmes award for deductive reasoning goes to...

All-time greatest comedies about child abuse:

1. AbFab

2. Mommie Dearest

3. I, Tonya

The Last Shout was really good, too. Some clever lines there.

If only it had actually BEEN the Last Shout.....

Last Shout was brilliant!

The whole 60-second interval where Joanna Lumley makes all those noises and twirls her hands around her tits and ass while confronting Saffy's potential mother in law (.....and hello, Sabina, naked snake charmer!).....always make me laugh.

A little physical bit and I still remember it years later.

You were dubbed in the end, you know. By Britt Eklund - Kelisha Kleg to Patsy Stone

Inside joke was that Joanna Lumley dated Rod Stewart in 1970's, but dumped him; however she did introduce RS to Britt Eklund who he messed about with as well. Britt Eklund and Joanna Lumley were in a James Bond movie together and were good enough friends at the time IIRC.

It is Britt Eklund who sings (groans) the French words at end of Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night".

Britt Eklund would also make an appearance on Ab Fab in famous luncheon scene with Zandra Rhodes.

The other "in joke" was that nude scenes from some of Joanna and Britt's racy 70s movies were added to the compilation feature "Electric Blue: The Movie" in 1982, along side hardcore scenes featuring Marilyn Chambers and Desiree Cousteau.

Loved AbFab but never really knew who a lot of the celebs were. Lulu had one hit in the 60's here in the US AFAIK. No idea who Zandra Rhodes is, etc.

American here who totally loved Magda's lines. I also loved the fat lady in Patsy's office who hilariously comments on Adrian Edmondson's character's speech about Spain.

R20 - they had live audiences. I remember once when Cher was an audience member.

R90

That would be Jo Brand, and her comments about Spain were light compared to normal offerings.

Jo Brand "taking the piss" out of Prince Harry and RF.....

"What is the point of asking me if I packed my suitcase myself?"

"Oh no, I let some total bastard of middle eastern origin pack it for me". *LOL*

Have always been tempted to use that line, but in this post 9/11/01 world just don't think it would go over well.

R90

Could be wrong but even for the UK original broadcast audience inside joke is LuLu wasn't hugely popular (remembered?) by the 1990's with younger generation. Even Bubble doesn't have a clue; then there is fact Eddie does her PR, which doesn't seem to be helping.

I always felt like the joke of Lulu had a lot to do with the silly sound of “Lulu”—like “LAH KWAH, Sweetie-Darling!”

Lulu is usually known to the British public as 'Bloody Lulu'.

Leeloo! Looloo!

Champagne for Lulu!!!!

R97 Was it from doing tampon or sanitary napkin commercials?

THINK ABOUT THE KITTIES, LOOK AT THEIR LITTLE SAD FACES...

I hated the film in theatre but then watched it again on a plane and found I laughed a lot. Like the Downton movie it was really just an extension of the series. It played better on the small screen. Oddly I was a little disappointed with the sets in London... nothing felt enough like the series and by then Eddie's house was established. Recasting is so tricky late in the game.

Sweetie...

All this psychoanalysis and still missing the point. Watch the original show and it is clear that while growing up Patsy and a (later to become Edina) were outsiders who longed for nothing more than to be IN. Gawky Patsy with her overbearing mother and terrible home life -Eddie was her only friend. Eddie, fat and unattractive (at least in her own eyes), was always the butt of jokes. Is it any wonder they would do absolutely ANYTHING to become part of the in crowd? Patsy even became Pat for a time (until it fell off) in order to be part of the swinging set. Of course, the terrible irony is that, unlike her brother, Saffy clearly loves her mother. Edina's search for love and acceptance has totally missed that her daughter loves her, sacrificing herself to take care of her and pick up the pieces. Not that Saffy is self-aware enough to realize that she is only sabotaging her own happiness in a bid for acceptance from the mother she loves who cannot love her back. AbFab = Greek tragedy... The film, whatever its flaws, at least suggests that Saffy will break the cycle with her own daughter –Stopping to remember to tell her that she loves her and wants her to be happy.

The reason we love AbFab is that we see ourselves in it. Whether we are Saffy, Patsy, or Eddie, we all just want to be loved and accepted -perhaps even admired -for who we are. We want life to be better than it is. Is there anything more universal? In the film, Saffy sings "At Seventeen" in the gay club and everyone in the place starts sobbing. Whether we were like the girl in the song or not, we all feel like we were. Thank god for Jennifer Saunders, who was able to make all of this outrageously funny as well as universal. Send that woman a case of Bolly!

I love this. Deep down Eddie loves Saffy.

"At Seventeen" was the perfect song for Saffy to sing in that scene. Just perfect.

R19 and r59 = Captain Obvious, but thank you for the dissertations.

I still an unable to stop laughing at Jennifer's failure to master the"PR. PR awards dinner of the month lunch."

R103, that was spot on! Thanks x

So, I've come to the conclusion that Bo and Marshall are Mother and Mike Pence.

Anybody see French and Saunders version of Mamma Mia? It's as funny as anything on AbFab...(even if you haven't seen Mamma Mia).

Can we all agree that Edina's house in the movie was fabulous?

R110 That is pretty much my happy place, I go there for pick me ups. Do you know the earlier Harry Potter ones too?

R111

Luckily that home is for rent......

R110

I always thought Jennifer telling Joanna "just do Patsy" was a subtle dig at Christine Baranski for basically playing Patsy in MM (as well as in the aforementioned US AbFab wannabe "Cybil").

I hated "Mamma Mia", but this is one of my fave FS parodies.

I love when they all walk into Eddie's office and Bubbles is passed out on the couch. When Eddie wonders aloud if Bubbles is asleep, Safie says, "It's hard to tell."

I never really got Bubbles. She was way too dumb even for a show like AbFab.

Same here - Bubbles was stupid and annoying I thought. Maybe like a Benny Hill British slapstick humor ?

I believe Bubbles made Eddie look smart (and competent). You know Eddie's professional career would've been totally different if she had the Bubbles from the Iso-Tank episode.

Bubbles was a dumb caricature, but so was everyone at Patsy’s magazine “job.” Everyone in fashion and “PR!” was a fool and their celeb clients seemed relatively normal for the most part. I think that’s kind of a funny deviation from the normal stereotype of dumb celebrities being handled by brilliant media masterminds.

Jennifer and Julia really did look like they could've been mother and daughter.

AbFab ridiculed the so called taste makers (fashion magazine industry) and taste creators (PR). The show showed them as vapid, delusioned buffoons who have no clue (and yet people worship them and seek their guidance).

There is no "s" in "Bubble," R115-119.

R119

CHAIRS...I’ve got a friend whose got a shop with some lovely chairs, and she says ‘Chairs are as important to civilization as a masterpiece’...or something, I wrote it down somewhere. So, we could print that up and do some lovely...photos!”

Clarins, Shisheido, Paloma Picasso, Chanel Make-up, generally Faces-eyes, lips, nostrils This is all off the top of my head. Douching with mint is a thought. Ten tips on tropical toenails. I'm thinking natural zing. "Moist" is my "word de jour". Lovely wet moist droplets. Lusciousness. I see sun, sand, water, beach Photo shoot-wise I'm looking at two weeks in the Caribbean. Skin is in. And the usual-try to look more beautiful if you want more sex.

I think Saunders found talents from time to time she really liked and just sort of gave them runway. I think Jane Horrocks (Bubble) is an example of that... so was Mo Gaffney (Bo.) A lot of their stuff could we be improv. She also gave occasional work to Ruby Wax, who I never found funny.

R125 Ruby Wax is somewhere right now desperately trying to sob quietly into a pillow.

What's your point, R126?

r127 Ruby Wax's fragile ego I'd imagine

Well, she does suffer depression so it may be.

Ruby Wax in effect created the Patsy we know by featuring a parody story in her own BBC show of Joanna Lumley as a washed-out performer trying to make a come back and reliving her glorious New Avengers days - it was the first time people really saw Lumley as a comedy actor in that way and was a factor in her casting in AbFab.

Joanna saw the humor and fascination the public had being a 'has-been' and ran with it. She was a great sport, and it led to a running gag in Ruby's The Full Wax program. This was the original (@21.09) Full Wax appearance in 1991, featuring Joanna that led to Patsy. Some people thought she was so good that Ruby must have actually broken into her house to get that reaction.

The second meeting she was willing to play "Joanna" as even more desperate and sad:

In her biography credited some of Ab Fab's success to Ruby Wax. She was her script editor, and penned some of the biting lines Ab Fab is famous for, including:

"Skirts so high, the world is her gynecologist."

"These women shop for lunch! Labels are their only sustenance! Their skeleton legs in Manolos have worn trenches down the pavement of Sloane Street. Their arm sinews have just enough muscles left in their arm to lift up a credit card."

I love that bit with Ruby on the radio waking Eddie up and it's some annoying story and Eddie turns it off and the radio turns itself on again and Ruby says "... vomit on ma shoe!".

Who exactly is Ruby Wax? She has an obnoxious accent. NY? How did she end up a thing over there?

Ruby was the Ali G. (Sacha Baron Cohen character) of the 80s. Foulmouthed host who took a piss at her (celebrity) guests who played along. Just like Dame Edna. Jen Saunders was Ruby's Debbie Downer sidekick on the show.

An even better clip with Ruby and Jennifer.

They were also in an 80s sitcom together, Girls On Top.

I had heard of Ruby but never saw anything she did. She was pretty funny in that clip. And didn’t Zsa Zsa look fabulous!

Ruby married a Brit to get British citizenship and to get away from her batshit parents. She tried to make it as an actress but couldn’t act. She’s a good script doctor but was never really funny herself.

As for Girls on Top, Tracey Ullman became so successful, she could buy and sell each one of their asses. lol

[quote] "These women shop for lunch! Labels are their only sustenance! Their skeleton legs in Manolos have worn trenches down the pavement of Sloane Street. Their arm sinews have just enough muscles left in their arm to lift up a credit card."

Yawn.

Skankin'

Ruby Wax doesnt belong in this thread. Please stop posting that d-tier panel-show reject.

So Girls on Top was a female version of the Young Ones?

LOL...you might not like Ruby Wax but she actually wrote a lot of AbFab....along with others like Sue Perkins.

Jennifer Saunders was a notorious procrastinator and apparently not really a great structured writer...good at coming up with "stuff" but not so great at writing a complete script....despite her solo writing credit on AbFab.

Love her but she's like a lot of talent; they like to art up their reputations with glorified credits. Like Madonna and Beyonce and all those so called "songwriters" who add one word to get a songwriting credit (and the subsequent royalties).

But why, when people make these accusations, as in R145, do they only use female examples.?

Hmm...

Because dames are the WOIST!

Yeah, it's widely acknowledged that Ruby Wax played a legit role on AbFab behind the scenes, shaping Jennifer's ideas and bits into cohesive scripts.

It worked brilliantly ... for a while.

Eddie was based on Lynne Franks. Jen can deny it all she wants. But Patsy was based on Amanda Lear while her look was based on Ivana Trump. When they were doing that awful French film adaption of AbFab, they wanted Amanda to play Patsy but she turned down the role saying that she had already lived it.

The only series I didn't like was series 5. The show was clearly struggling by that point. The 3 specials (which are sometimes considered as series 6) were a return to form and the movie was okay, but could've been better. I wished that Magda didn't disappear during The Last Shout only to return 20 years later for the film. It would've been interesting if she was in more episodes and series.

Jen's completely done with it. Not to mention June Whitfield is gone. Don't know how they could do the show without Mother if Jen ever changes her mind.

I do wish we could have a completely uncut series with the music intact. I bought the box set and the theme song was the instrumental version (oddly the 3 2010's specials use a remix of Sweet Dreams as the intro theme), the Chicago scene was cut, the series was slightly out of chronological order (Gay and White Box where thrown together on a separate DVD in the set) and the English subtitles/captions (for those who can't understand the accents/sometimes rapid fire dialogue, my friends needed them) were terrible (dialogue from several different characters is combined without stating who is speaking).

Hopefully, she'll never agree to do it again.

Loved the characters and show but...it's done. I've been too scared to see the entire movie (the clips I've seen seem awful) and the last series of specials in 2012 were painful to watch. It's not funny watching 70somethings totter about doing shtick. It's just sad.

“Is it a bee?”

“Oh, it’s a small phone!”

There is so much politically and socially going on right now not just in UK but EU and world to provide reams of material.

Eds and Pats are done; so something different with Serge, possibly with partner/spouse (he'll need a straight man to play Patsy to his a).

Serge could have either taken over his mother's PR firm, or maybe stepfather's antique business.

This whole Instagram (Instahoe), Influencer, etc... world proves we aren't anywhere near done with self absorbed people. It's just something different than 1990's.

Serge wasn't that interesting a character. He basically played an even more boring version of Saffy.

It'd be funny to see a comedy series about Instagram influencers who think they shit lilacs. Perhaps up against a worn out, but good personal assistant. Influencers have their own lingo and nonsense so it would be good to see it spoofed in a series.

[quote]“Oh, it’s a small phone!”

A small shoe.

They could do a series where Eddie is old, completely irrelevant and completely broke, having to rely on the dole and the NHS. She and Pats would be living in a hovel, but would still try keeping up the pretense of being rich.

R156 ugh no thanks, they already did that in an episode and we don't want to see them old.

I definitely do not want to see Eddie as poor, either. Ugh, the worst thing that could happen to AbFab would be to make it “woke” in any kind of way. It is a satire. It exists within its own totally amoral world. Patsy and Eddie do not need to suffer real consequences. They don’t need to lose their money and they don’t need a moral awakening. Watching them make fools of themselves is all that was ever needed to convey that these crazy old ladies are not role models and that this is pure silly fantasy—karma does not apply to them. If they were living off social services, that would inevitably imply a karmic comeuppance like the one the Seinfeld characters faced at the end of Seinfeld, and that appalled people for very good reason: suddenly a years-long parody of foolishly amoral people was turned into tale of the consequences of amorality. That’s a betrayal of its own nature and no one wants to see that shit.

R154 Ryan Murphy should real do Feud: The Beauty Influencers with James Charles, Jeffery Starr and Tati.

The whole premise was the absurd new wealth in London which benefited the baby boomers. The premise is dated now. World has moved on - absurd global wealth is now a given. Immigration is more relevant - and AbFab never dealt with that. Al remnants of baby boomer London

Ryan Murphy drives me fucking nuts. He has such good ideas. And he gets his ideas greenlit and funded. And then he casts people he fawns over and invests all his money in visuals and no thought into scripts and rarely fails to disappoint.

Feud should have been and could have been soooo good. The idea was so good and long overdue. The script was close to good. Susan Sarandon was good but she brought too much personal baggage and was a distraction. Jessica Lange is a breathtaking artist—but she played Jessica Lange impersonating Joan Crawford, as delivered with Jessica Lange’s voice, and that apparently is just how Ryan Murphy likes it. I was pulling out my hair throughout the series because it’s a great concept that only would have been made by Ryan Murphy but it was undermined by Ryan Murphy’s own design.

Glee’s first season was so inventive and well executed and then it slowly tanked. Same with American Horror Story—but that series not only tanked when it stopped caring about story; it also got Murphy into his bad habit of recasting the same people in every project, even when they are totally wrong for it. Lange was brillllllliant in the first AHS season. She was a lot of fun as the coven mistress. And then the show was just about catering to the actress’s whims (“I love to sing, Ryan! Give me a cabaret!”) and then just miscasting her, for example, as Crawford.

Weirdly, although it often has an afterschool special feel, I think I’ve liked Pose the most of all of his productions overall. I think it has to do with the commitment to telling a good story and (for the most part) avoidance of stunt casting.

Stop trying to hijack an Ab Fab thread and make it about Ryan Murphy, you bitch troll from hell.

R160 despite Ab Fab resulting from a very specific cultural era - specifically the collision of Thatcher-era selfishness and baby boomer selfishness - one of the fundamental themes of Ab Fab has always been whether England was capable of reinvention and change. Mother and Saffy’s stuffiness and Englishness were, by virtue of skipping over Edina, a suggestion of and old, reactionary Englishness that was inescapable. Which, coming as we are now through years of Brexit chaos and the largest Tory victory in a century, is still totally relevant today. (The joke about Margaret Thatcher being prime minister for 3000 years was more prophetic than the writers could have imagined.)

Series Four was weak but the jokes about New Labour - a failed attempt at major English cultural and political change - played into the series’ themes perfectly.

I'm hijackin' this thread and making it about.....