Nearly a year after she expressed some nervousness at the prospect, British comic actress/writer has finally finished a script that would bring the characters from her popular sitcom Absolutely Fabulous to the silver screen.
Speaking with the London Mirror‘s Sunday People section (so standard British tabloid disclaimers apply), Saunders stated –
I’ve finished the first draft. I’m feeling euphoric. My proper New Year’s resolution is to do the film, otherwise it’ll be a pointless year of procrastination.
The Mirror also reports that Saunders has been reportedly been working on this script for “20 years,” A claim that I find a bit dubious, as that would put the start somewhere in the production of the show’s third series in 1995. Since then, there was fourth series and a number of specials It really wasn’t until 2011 that there was any real talk about the show leaping to the big screen. At that time, Saunders was prepping a series of specials that would celebrate the 20th anniversary since the first appearance of her and Joanna Lumleys’ characters of Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone, two aging, boozing woman perpetually chasing the latest fads and fashioned in order to stay current.
Since then, it has been disclosed that the film will very likely open with Eddie and Patsy waking up on a deserted yacht and having some sort of misadventures along the French Riviera. The Mirror does state that other series regulars including Julia Sawalha as Eddie’s long-suffering daughter Saffron and June Whitfield as Eddie’s oblivious mother.
Back when news of a possible AbFab movie first broke in 2011, I was skeptical, thinking that perhaps the time had passed for such an endeavor and that Eddie and Patsy’s antics might be more tragic than comic at this point. But the 2012 spcials, especially the one done for the Olympics, showed that there may still be some life left in the pair.
