you see? RELATABLE
The interweb is a buzz about the three brand new episodes of Absolutely Fabulous due in time for the 20th anniversary of the show. I loved the first couple of series when I first watched it in the 90s and I don't mind telling you I still find those episodes funny now. Only instead of laughing because “haha, mobile phones?! Cosmetic surgery?! Well I never!” we now laugh because “haha, I identify!”
Relatable
Which is of course the problem. Now the gap betwixt the sensible and the frivolous has closed and there's no such thing as excess. The shock of characters Edina and Patsy has dissipated and since Saffy got knocked up the show's just no fun anymore.
None of this is to say Absolutely Fabulous hasn't hugely influenced British sensibilities. I don't mind telling you that, whilst typing this, I am occasionally breaking to drink cava (be fair, this is a recession) from one of the glasses dubbed in our home as 'the everyday champagne glasses'. Increasingly from the late 90s onwards taking drugs and doing no work whilst being paid huge amounts of money and falling over are just not shameful now. Fine, we’re still not quite clear on what a PR actually does but we have elected one as our PM.
Women behaving badly, and older women at that, doesn't have the comic twang it did 20 years ago. Now we value growing older disgracefully - even Women's Hour presenter Jenni Murray said “bitches” on radio.
I've been trying to anticipate what Edina and Patsy will be coping in the current climate. The last series rather proved the dead horse status of Ab Fab when even wheeling out unemployed celebrities couldn't breathe new life into the show.
Perhaps if they had been able to get hold of celebrities what could act that might have made a difference. But no, Richard E. Grant, Helena Bonham Carter and Germaine Greer were replaced with...Baby Spice. How will the now post menopausal drug addled fashion victims Edina and Patsy be coping in the recession? What will Saffy's child have grown into? (Other than...a bigger child. Obviously)
Were I a big cheese at the BBC and asked what to do with Ab Fab I think my first port of call would be banning those celeb cameos but in my heart of hearts I know really I'd probably have to send down the following memo, 'The only thing to be done with this show is to flog it.'
Squeamish Kate
None of this is to say Absolutely Fabulous hasn't hugely influenced British sensibilities. I don't mind telling you that, whilst typing this, I am occasionally breaking to drink cava (be fair, this is a recession) from one of the glasses dubbed in our home as 'the everyday champagne glasses'. Increasingly from the late 90s onwards taking drugs and doing no work whilst being paid huge amounts of money and falling over are just not shameful now. Fine, we’re still not quite clear on what a PR actually does but we have elected one as our PM.
Women behaving badly, and older women at that, doesn't have the comic twang it did 20 years ago. Now we value growing older disgracefully - even Women's Hour presenter Jenni Murray said “bitches” on radio.
I've been trying to anticipate what Edina and Patsy will be coping in the current climate. The last series rather proved the dead horse status of Ab Fab when even wheeling out unemployed celebrities couldn't breathe new life into the show.
Perhaps if they had been able to get hold of celebrities what could act that might have made a difference. But no, Richard E. Grant, Helena Bonham Carter and Germaine Greer were replaced with...Baby Spice. How will the now post menopausal drug addled fashion victims Edina and Patsy be coping in the recession? What will Saffy's child have grown into? (Other than...a bigger child. Obviously)
Were I a big cheese at the BBC and asked what to do with Ab Fab I think my first port of call would be banning those celeb cameos but in my heart of hearts I know really I'd probably have to send down the following memo, 'The only thing to be done with this show is to flog it.'
Squeamish Kate
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