Outrageous British Sitcom 'Absolutely Fabulous' Set to Return

Earlier this week in Great Britain, it was reported that the popular television series, Absolutely Fabulous will be coming back with all new episodes sometime in the near future. Sitcom co-star Joanna Lumley, who plays the outrageous Patsy Stone, reportedly leaked the imminent deal for three all-new episodes to be filmed sometime during the summer in an interview with Hello! Magazine.

Absolutely Fabulous is one of the BBC's all time most popular shows. It first appeared in 1992 and its audience grew as the series progressed though five intermittent seasons and a few specials. The show follows the misadventures of two friends, Edina Monsoon ("Eddie", played by series creator Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone, two middle-aged hipsters getting through life as if they were still teens in the 1960's.

"Time is like a stretched elastic band. You can't let it go or it'll come back and take your eye out."

Indeed, that's the mantra for these two ladies, who believe that drinking, smoking and doing drugs like they did back in the day is what keeps them young. Luckily for them they have Saffron ("Saffy," played by Julia Sawalha), Edina's intellectually frumpy daughter, who must play role reversal to her mother's child-like tantrums and schemes.

"Excuse me if I sue when I die prematurely of passive boredom, of dull-as-dishwater-daughter-induced stress."

Of course, Saffy and Patsy loathe one another, playing the role of good angel/bad angel over Eddie's often wishy-washy shoulders. The two of them are often trading vicious barbs, each getting in their shots at one another whenever the opportunity arises.

Patsy: "It's a good photo, isn't it? I think the photographer really caught something.

Saffy: "Yeah, syphilis."

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Eddie(to Saffy): With any luck we'd get Roman Polanski interested in you.

Patsy: She was never young enough for him.

The rest of the supporting cast includes Eddie's mother (played by veteran actress June Whitfield), and Bubble, her personal assistant. Mother can be somewhat of a ditz, yet she knows how to get under her daughter's skin.

Edina: "In this body there's a thin person dying to get out."

Mother: "Just the one, dear?"

Bubble (played by Jane Horrocks) is the type that must've been dropped on the floor as a child as she is as dense as one can be. Check out a clip of Bubble wondrously pondering the meaning of the New Year here .

As the show is produced in England, much of the humor can be decidedly British. Yet there is enough raunchy, laughable humor for anybody to enjoy. Some of the funniest moments concern the gal's mind-numbing lifestyle choices:

"The last mosquito that bit me had to check into the Betty Ford clinic."

"Darling, if you want to talk bollocks and discover the meaning of life, you're better off downing a bottle of whiskey. At least that way, you're unconscious by the time you start to take yourself seriously."

Lumley says Saunders contacted her several months ago about bringing the sitcom back:

"Jen wrote to me and said, 'Let's talk through it. What do you think?' And I said, 'Bring it on,' because we're all still here. Mother's still alive, the wonderful June Whitfield. Julia Sawalha [and] Jane Horrocks [are] all still alive and available ... and I think we just have to do it," she said at the time."

Saunders has been busy with other writing projects and so she hasn't even begun working on any scripts, but there's no doubt that once the deal is inked, the newest incarnation of AbFab will soon come to be. What the newest version will look like is anyone's guess, but judging from past seasons, there's no doubt we're in for some more outrageous humor. Fabulous!

Sources:

http://abfabstuff.tripod.com/quotes.html

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/04/20/New_Episodes_of_AbFab_Confirmed/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/abfab/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/20/absolutely-fabulous-bbc-1-sitcom

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105929/quotes

http://www.tv.com/absolutely-fabulous-uk/show/2257/summary.html

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Absolutely_Fabulous