Absolutely Fabulous

pete lashmar

pete lashmar

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After 2 years without work I am finally returning to DJing in 2 weeks time but with a huge difference - because this year I will be the first Drag DJ in the Algarve, DJing as Maria Von Tramp. Poor Maria has left the 7 brats and her captain after being driven to alcohol with their daily singing...the poor woman has now been reduced to DJing in a dive bar in an Algarve town!

Anyway, I digress from the topic in hand, as a prelude to doing drag for the first time ever I began a re-watch of Absolutely Fabulous today and although I've seen it many times over it's been quite some time that I really went through it all.

Series one just had me howling like a hyena, Eddie, Patsy, Saffy,Bubble and mum are just genius comedy characters and the scripts are just so tight and funny. Eddie & Patsy are absolute monsters, but I absolutely adore their lives and their attitude. As series 1 progresses their behaviour just gets worse and worse and funnier and funnier.

My favourite episodes in the whole run are Death (series 2) and Sex (series 3), both of these are just the highlights of the show for me, especially Death, which has more brilliant one liners than any other episode for me.

Although the quality did drop in series 4 & 5 there is still a lot to laugh at, but the 3 specials in 2012 were brilliantly funny and back to a good solid comedy show.

Jennifer Saunders & Joanna Lumley are incredible as the terrible twosome, but Julia Sawalha as poor Saffy really is the heavy counterweight to balance the show brilliantly. June Whitfield was also wonderful as the mum.

All in all a bloody funny series and although Maria Von Tramp isn't based on a character from the show, they certainly help with seeing just how funny a comedy creation can be.
 
Snarky Oracle!

Snarky Oracle!

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How was the theatrical movie -- I never saw it?
 
pete lashmar

pete lashmar

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Snarky Oracle said:
How was the theatrical movie -- I never saw it?
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Jennifer always referred to the film as a goodbye gift to the fans and so i think it depends on how well you know the series to get the best out of it.

For me, I enjoyed it, I thought it was funny and have seen it 2 or 3 times, but these TV shows never really translate well onto the big screen IMO - a sit com especially as a big part of sit-coms is the live audience reaction.

With the Ab Fab film Jennifer created a "typical" move plot that TV shows seem to use when going to the big screen, she took the characters away from their TV surrounding. Now normally that means it fails miserably, but Ab Fab did have a tradition of filming overseas, so on this occasion it worked.

Overall it's a funny film, not as good as the best of the TV series, but it's funny, chock full of cameo appearances and a good send off for the characters.

That said, I still think they'll be back at some point in the future, but probably back on TV.
 
darkshadows38

darkshadows38

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i have 2 favorite Quotes one is i have told countless people since like the 90's and it;'s in the episode Sex from Season 1 where Ed's makes a remark about being
Celibate and Saffy goes you aren't Celibate you just haven't gotten any in 2 years. the other is when Patsy's older sister shows up and she says something like i'm retiring from partying i'm just to old to anymore to do it i'm 65 or however old that she said i don't recall or even remember at all anyways Pasty goes your? than how old am i?
 
Emelee

Emelee

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tommie said:
Well, this is a find - Absolutely Fabulous (2009) US Pilot:


A minute and a half in and Kathryn Hahn doesn't work as Edina (nothing against her as an actress, she just doesn't have that... I don't know, naivety / childishness that Saunders has in the role).
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Thanks for posting this!
I can definitely see why this didn't take off. It's not as raw and the characters are too nice to each other. Patsy and Eddie are more vulgar in the original. Eddie is supposed to be whiney, childish, overbearing and needy. Patsy just plain raw and selfish. She's the one who can call Saffy "you bitch troll from hell" and joke that they tried to abort her. Not just a tame "I thought she was 11".
 
tommie

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Emelee said:
Thanks for posting this!
I can definitely see why this didn't take off. It's not as raw and the characters are too nice to each other. Patsy and Eddie are more vulgar in the original. Eddie is supposed to be whiney, childish, overbearing and needy. Patsy just plain raw and selfish. She's the one who can call Saffy "you bitch troll from hell" and joke that they tried to abort her. Not just a tame "I thought she was 11".
Click to expand...
Yeah, it just doesn't work and I like both Johnson and Hahn in general. I also think another issue is that the characters on AbFab were such characters of their generation(s) - dotty "mother"/gran who is of the Silent Generation, Edina and Patsy, who are baby boomers, growing up to never fully grow up and of course Saffy, an overachieving Gen X:er. I don't know how to translate that into modern times effectively.
 
tommie

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I wonder when Lumley publically will start taking the Kim Cattrall stance in public and just say "enough already"...
 
Toni

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Patsy should become a mother of a real drag queen, that would be fun!!
 
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