Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders reveal Absolutely Fabulous almost didn’t make it to TV after a BBC boss decided ‘drunk women aren’t funny’

They have been television’s favorite Bollinger-guzzling fashionistas for more than thirty years.

But Joanna Lumley, 78, and Jennifer Saunders, 66, almost didn’t get the chance to play their career-defining roles in Absolutely Fabulous when a BBC comedy boss said he ‘didn’t find drunk women funny’.

In a new BBC documentary, Absolutely Fabulous: Inside Out, the sitcom’s producer John Plowman revealed: ‘We’re doing the pilot and I see Robin Nash, who was the head of comedy at the time, and I said, ‘What do you think? ?’

“And he said, ‘I’ve never found women who are drunk very funny.’ And I thought, ‘Well, that’s it, it’s over.’

‘But we did it in the evening. The audience was amazing and my most bonding memory was seeing Ben Elton at the end [comedian] and he said, ‘Well, I’ve seen the future of comedy and that’s that.’

Absolutely Fabulous ran for five successful seasons from 1992 to 2003 and one film, with a host of A-list guest stars including Tom Holland, Emma Bunton and Rosie Huntington Whitley.

But during the documentary, which airs on Thursday, the show’s lead Joanna Lumley said: ‘I remember a television review in the Times when the first episode came out and it said: ‘Sorry, no, this isn’t going to work and it’s not funny. Drunk women are not funny.

“Goodbye, this is the end of that show.”

Her co-star and sitcom creator Jennifer Saunders added, “I remember him also saying, ‘Beware of the sitcom where the writer is the lead.’ I thought, ‘Oh!’.”

Absolutely Fabulous follows Edina Monsoon, played by Saunders, an alcoholic and drug-abusing PR mogul, and her best friend Patsy, Saunders, as they pass their time in a haze of drunken selfishness.

The show is credited with having a groundbreaking influence on female comedy by breaking down the role of women.

Yesterday Mrs Saunders told the Radio Times:

‘For a start it was broadcast on BBC2, which was more like Channel 4 at the time; you could push the boundaries a bit.’

‘There were no great expectations. Some male executives were not that impressed with women being drunk.”

“But the show attracted an audience.”

Meanwhile, Jane Horrocks, who played personal assistant Bubble, added that the brash nature of the show sparked disdain from some at the time.

She explained: “Looking back, it was brave that the cast was almost entirely female. And the ‘boyish’ behavior was generally not approved. I don’t think people had seen women do that before.”

But Jennifer was quick to add that they were never intended to be pioneers at the time, adding that it wasn’t “conscious” and that Eddie and Patsy were “never written as role models.”

And while Patsy became one of the most iconic female characters in British comedy, Joanna revealed she almost turned down the role.

After receiving the script, the actress thought it was “the funniest thing in the world” and went to the BBC to meet series creator Jennifer, reports The sun.

However, after receiving few clues about the character or how to read for the role, she felt it was a “dead loss” and believed that Jennifer “didn’t want her”, subsequently telling her agent to to rule out. the pilot.

She explained: ‘I thought it was a dead loss, we didn’t know each other and I didn’t know what she wanted. I called my agent and said, “I don’t think Jennifer wants me, can you get me out of here?” and they said “It’s just a pilot, just do it, it might not take off”. I almost wasn’t Patsy.’

The actress went on to say that being cast in the show gave her the opportunity to expand from the roles she had previously played, with the former Bond Girl often being cast as the ‘beautiful girlfriend or the sad victim’.

Meanwhile, Jane also almost didn’t appear in the sitcom after originally auditioning for the role of Saffy, with Jennifer feeling she was ‘not right’ for the role.

However, she thought the actress was ‘too good’ to let go and wrote the role of Bubble especially for her.

Despite the sitcom being hugely popular these days, the female-led show took some getting used to when it first hit screens over thirty years ago.

Tom Hollander, who played Saffy’s friend Paolo, said of Ab Fab: “I went to rehearse and I remember thinking, ‘This is a matriarchy, this is quite nice, everything is done by ladies, and there’s Joanna Lumley playing Rothmans hands out. “.I remember there wasn’t really much formal rehearsal, but there was a lot of people being really funny, an intimidating level of people being hilarious and all outdoing each other.”

Meanwhile, Meera Syal, who played Suzy Menkes, noted that the “magic” of the show comes from the “female gaze,” adding that Jennifer’s voice was “authentic.”