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By Marc Peyser
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The waitress arrives and, along with her, the moment of truth. "What would you like to drink?" she asks Jennifer Saunders. This is what you might call a loaded question. Saunders is the creator and star of "Absolutely Fabulous," the most dipsomaniacal sitcom in history. She's promoting the return of "Ab Fab" after a five-year hiatus, talking about how a show featuring two women obsessed with fashion, smoking and, most important, booze can still be funny after September 11. Saunders makes convincing arguments about the hilarious desperation of Patsy and Edina, their inability to face reality--blah, blah, blah. We're not buying any of it until we hear what she orders to drink. "What time is it?" she asks. It's 1 o'clock. "I'll have"--she pauses--"a white-wine spritzer." What a relief. The "Ab Fab" happy juice is back.
There are some who will argue that the new six-episode installment of "Ab Fab" is less fab than the original. The British, who got the new season in September, called it "absolutely fatuous" and worse. Saunders wasn't surprised. "You can never live up to your own publicity," she says. "They wanted the show to be dated, so they said it wasn't new." The fact is, "Ab Fab" has always been a mixed bag: vicious satire one minute, screwball comedy the next. Still, fans will find plenty to love in the new lot, especially the episode where Eddy has an affair with a much younger gardener and the one involving Patsy (Joanna Lumley), menopause and a pregnancy scare. If the women's terrible self-absorption and worse fashion sense feels less fresh at times, perhaps that's to be expected in our post-September 11 world. Saunders believes the country's more serious tone will actually help underscore the darker side of Eddy's and Patsy's lives. "Everything has changed, and hopefully the show kind of reflects that," she says. "Eddy knows she's no longer blowing the Zeitgeist out. She can't get into the hippest clubs anymore. The smoking and drinking is kind of just what they do now. It's a bit sad, really."
Saunders is still surprised that "Ab Fab" caught on in the United States to begin with. "At first they wanted to subtitle it," she says. Still, she thinks the show does play differently on this side of the Atlantic. "There's a slightly more puritanical streak in America that finds the bits more outrageous," she says. "And in L.A., they think it's insane. They would rather believe aliens have landed than the reality of a world where people smoke, drink and allow themselves to not look beautiful."
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Speaking of reality, Saunders says that for some odd reason, people still claim to be the model for these overdressed lushes. "Most of it is from me, my neuroses exaggerated," says Saunders, a proud mother of three who bites her nails and seems somewhat delicate without the curly Edina wig. "I'd like to take up yoga. I've been on so many diets, but I never change weight. I'm my own before-and-after photo." Celebrities have also inspired some of the best "Ab Fab" wickedness, though Saunders has learned to be careful. "Linda McCartney jokes you just can't get away with," she says. "But we substituted jokes that were just as bad." Such as? "I wouldn't want Paul McCartney. Vegetarian sausage." Occasionally, Lumley--a movie star since "The New Avengers"--will also veto a zinger aimed at a friend. "She'll say, 'I just can't. I couldn't face them ever again'," says Saunders.
Now that she's back, Saunders plans to keep the "Ab Fab" confab going. "The challenge for the next one is to have Eddy and Saffy [her daughter] living apart," she says. "Eddy and Patsy could have more men." Saunders has already allowed some tinkering with the formula. This summer the French released a feature-film version of the show, "Absolument Fabuleux," starring French actors and a script using material from the sitcom as well as original writing. "The weird thing is to see how another culture takes it," says Saunders. "There was a scene where Patsy was having sex in the back of a van with a caterer delivery boy. I know that the shock was not that she was having sex but that she was squashing a tarte tatin." And this time the "Ab Fab" tart finished on top.
Absolutely FabulousComedy Central
Premieres Nov. 12
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