Absolutely Fabulous is back!

Appropriate for their big screen debut, Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone (Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley) are still oozing glitz and glamour, living the high life they are accustomed to; shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London’s trendiest hotspots. But when they accidentally push Kate Moss into the river Thames at an uber fashionable launch party, Eddy and Patsy become entangled in a media storm surrounding the supermodel’s untimely demise and are relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent and live the high life forever more!

Once again, outrageous and sensational style, sassy sensibility, and warped wit is back in fashion and destined to dazzle a new generation of filmgoers, and regenerate their swarm of loyal fanatics.

In a sense, it is essential to have an ‘Ab Fab’ mindset to fully comprehend the influence and fearless attitude it passed on to those who were bewitched by its magical spell, giving everyone the right be be their own person and defy traditional conventions.

It all began when the acidic wit and controversial humour of master British satirist Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders surfaced with ‘French and Saunders’.

It satisfied the appetite of TV viewers who were looking for entertainment that dared to be different and challenged fixed cultural mindsets, resulting in the creation of Little Britain and League of Gentleman.

Ab Fab in technicolour

“This is Ab Fab on a completely different scale,” says producer Damian Jones. “Fans of the TV show are in for quite a treat, because they are going to get all the outrageousness and hilarity that they first fell in love with, wrapped up in a very glamorous package.”

“Patsy and Eddy are wildly hedonistic creatures and to them the South of France is a sort of nirvana,” explains producer Jon Plowman. “It’s got all the ingredients for their sort of good life - yachts, sea, sun, booze, hotels that are beyond the dreams of ordinary mortals where drinking huge amounts of champagne before breakfast is absolutely the done thing. It’s the life that they have been looking for since 1991, when we made the first pilot for the series.”

“Our ultimate aim was to open the TV series - which largely took place in the closed set of Edina’s house - up into 360 degrees,” Harry Banks explains.

“This is the Ab Fab we know and love, but it has now opened up onto a believable, cinematic scale. We’ve given it an uplift, I suppose. And the effect that that creates is that it makes the audience feel that they are somehow, more than ever, living Patsy and Eddy’s experiences alongside them. We can drive with them up to Eddy’s house, follow them down the stairs into the kitchen, go with them to a party, cruise with them on a yacht. It’s the same ‘Ab Fab’ we know and love, but now it’s in technicolor.”

“It was very simple, really,” says director Mandie Fletcher. “We wanted it to look, and feel, like a glass of champagne on a dark day. We’ve given it the gloss, the glitz and the glamour that it deserves.”

Getting the gang together was, in many ways, the easiest part of the filming process. “We all hoped it was going to happen at some point because the longing for it was just so colossal,” says Jane Horrocks.

All the J’s - Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks, June Whitfield (and Jon Plowman) - have been a family for longer than a lot of their new, younger audience demographic have been alive. Having worked together on and off for twenty five years, on five series and seven specials, they know every aspect of each other’s characters - both in fiction and in reality. “The great thing about having a success is it means you can do more of what you’re doing, make more of what you’ve been making,” explains Saunders. “We all became a family, and there is no better feeling than going into something knowing that people you love will be there.”

A word from the actresses

“We are safe as houses, the five of us,” says Joanna Lumley. “We know that. We know each other. We know each other’s characters. And we know our audience. I am sure I speak for all of us when I say that we have all adored being back together again.”

After years of togetherness, Saunders and Lumley are a particularly sharp double act.

“Some of my happiest times have been sitting in costume with Joanna, having conversations in character that just make us pee,” says Saunders, who also wrote the screenplay.

“One day, we’ll all be dead,” says Saunders. “So I say, let’s just all enjoy every single blooming minute as much as we possibly can, for as long as we possibly can.”

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