Absolutely Fabulous film due out 'in time for 2014 Oscars'
By DENI KIRKOVA
PUBLISHED: 13:31 EST, 25 January 2013 | UPDATED: 13:31 EST, 25 January 2013
'Is champers all right with you, Pats?', 'Lovely darling.'
The unmistakeably posh lexicon of hit TV series Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is set to return to screens as soon as next year, in the form of a feature film, it has been revealed.
The woman behind lead character Patsy Stone - a botox, champagne and drug addicted magazine editor - has confirmed an Ab Fab movie is on the way.
Joanna Lumley, 66, confirming the news reported in the Mail last year that a film was in the pipeline, told the Telegraph: 'We've talked about it, Jennifer [Saunders] is writing the film.
'Although yesterday the press were saying it's a musical now! But whatever it is, I'll be there.'
She also said while she's alive no-one but her will play Patsy, even if that means brushing up on her all but non-existent singing and dancing skills.
‘I cried at the first full run of the show’: Jennifer Saunders at home with her dog, Olive. Photograph: Perou
Jennifer Saunders's first musical, Viva Forever!, based on the songs of the Spice Girls, opens at the Piccadilly Theatre London W1 on 27 November. Saunders started writing the script in 2010 after being treated, successfully, for breast cancer.
You've written a lot of scripts but a full-scale musical is something different. How is Viva Forever! going?
It's going well I think. I saw a full run of the show yesterday for the first time. I didn't sleep a lot last night: a mixture of excitement and sheer terror. It is much more of a massive thing than anything I've done before, really. And there are large parts of it where I realise I have absolutely nothing to offer at all. Like choreography. Moving people around the stage. All that. I'm used to writing scripts that make frequent use of the words "cut to". But of course you can't do that here. I was hoping I might get away with "lights out" or "curtain down" or something but of course it turns out you can't do that because this actor has to be offstage and in the next scene in different clothes. I'm not good at logistics…
‘I have all these clothes at home… I thought to myself, “Don’t be selfish”,' says Joanna
When you meet Joanna Lumley, it’s disconcerting. She’s so Patsy, the Absolutely Fabulous comic creation surely up there with Inspector Clouseau, Sybil Fawlty and Bridget Jones, and yet at the same time so not.
She arrives at the auction house in South London where her wardrobe – including her Ab Fab outfits – is about to go on sale, all long legs, thigh boots and poncho, and when she smiles hello she almost does that Patsy grimace: bared teeth accompanied by a wild snort.
The enthusiasm is the same, the striding about, the air-kissing of everyone in the room. But of course Joanna Lumley is not Patsy. She tells me she only really becomes the character when her hair is up in that trademark beehive.
‘That’s all my own hair, you know,’ she says. ‘I’ve got good working hair. Backcombed, of course. Jennifer Saunders called it Mr Whippy. I never used a wig or a hairpiece.’ I tell her the key to the character is that she remains just this side of reality, that I know people who have worked in fashion for too long who are just like Patsy, syphoning up dregs from all the near empty wine glasses in a restaurant as they leave, nothing to live for but the next Chanel show.
‘It was Jennifer [Saunders] as Eddy who wore all the extreme stuff, putting on lots of different looks at the same time,’ says Joanna. ‘The Lacroix, the oversize hip-hop medallions, the denim boiler suits: the key was that Jen always wore something either two sizes too big, or too small. Patsy dressed exactly as a fashion editor would: the perfect Chanel jacket no one else has got. She dressed immaculately most of the time, in lovely neutrals – she always looked elegant. The mistake people make when they dress up as her is that they make her quite tarty, which she wasn’t. I was Jennifer’s foil, always plain and simple.’
Joanna is selling 16 lots, including some from Absolutely Fabulous, worn across the series from 1995 to 2011, the films Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther (1982 and 1983), and The New Avengers TV series (late 70s). There are also items from her personal wardrobe, such as the Pucci dress she wore to celebrate her opening night in La Bête on Broadway in 2010, and the ivory and gold lace Tatters dress she wore to collect her Bafta Special Award for The New Avengers in 2000, all to raise money for the Prince’s Trust.
(I really hope this series comes back somehow! and I want Ian and Sally to get together!!! - Karen)
What was it like behind the scenes though? For all its glitz, I imagine not dissimilar to Twenty Twelve (BBC2, Tuesday). This fantastic mockumentary came to an end with an episode entitled Loose Ends. We joined Head of Deliverance Ian (Hugh Bonneville) and his team 18 days before the Olympics were kicked off but just 10 days before they were due to hand over to the Live team.
The loose ends they had to tie up included the fears that Danny Boyle’s fireworks might trigger the ground-to-air missiles put in place for security, that the slow-charge eco cars would all have run out of battery by day two and that there were only two volunteers for a specially commissioned peal of bells.
In an impressive cast including Olivia Colman as Ian’s devoted secretary Sally and Morven Christie as the fantastically passive-aggressive Fi, it was Jessica Hynes’s objectionable
Head of Brand Siobhan Sharpe who stole the show. “What I do here is repurpose this whole thing...” she said, turning the bell ringing into a celebrity judged contest called The Big Bong.
There were personal loose ends too but a cut to black and the credits denied us a denouement of Ian and Sally’s will-they-won’t-they saga. I can never make up my mind whether I think this is clever and subtle or a dramatic cop-out but here I hope it might herald another series.
This sort of faux-reality format is hardly original but writer-director John Morton has a deft touch, keeping the blunders just the right side of farce.
In fact, with buses getting lost on their way to the Olympic Park and the wrong Korean flag being hoist, he could have gone a lot further and still remained less ridiculous than real life.
Twenty Twelve has been one of this year’s best sit-coms so there was really no contest when it came to Games-themed drollery. Absolutely Fabulous: Olympics (BBC1, Monday) deserved no medals for comedy.
Jennifer Saunders has banned Madonna from appearing on her smash-hit comedy Absolutely Fabulous. Saunders, who writes and stars in the popular series with Joanna Lumley, has made no secret of her desire for Madonna to appear on the show over the last two decades but has now given up after the Material Girl has continued to snub her requests.
"We have had loads of celebrities who have said no to us, but always Madonna. Madonna is the bane of our lives," Saunders said.
"In fact even if she said yes now we would have to turn her down. Madonna has always said no - and so are we."
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are to reunite for a comedy special - set in rehab.
The Bafta-winning comic duo, who have not performed together since a Comic Relief sketch in 2009, are to star in a new instalment of The Comic Strip Presents, titled Five Go To Rehab.
"It's great that Dawn and Jennifer are back together again. Viewers have really missed them," an insider told the Sun.
Jennifer's husband Ade Emondson will also appear in the upcoming show - a spoof of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books - which will be filmed this month in Devon before being aired later this year on comedy channel Gold.
Ignored, insulted, breastfed by strangers, sold into white slavery, exposed from atop the Eiffel Tower . . .
Julia Sawalha had finally had enough.
“When I was asked to do the 20th anniversary special, I was reticent about it,” confides the actress who has, as Safflower “Saffy” Monsoon, barely tolerated the antics of her fictional mom Edwina (Jennifer Saunders) and chain-smoking nemesis Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) in several seasons and specials of Absolutely Fabulous, the cult-hit Britcom about the rich and toasted.
“I felt I had put Saffy to ‘sleep’ and wasn’t sure if I could resurrect her,” she says. “It was kind of like she had turned into a ventriloquist’s dummy that was lying in a dusty old box, and if I got her out I would just be working her like a puppet.
“But as Jennifer emailed me a couple of ideas she had planned for Saffy, I immediately roared with laughter and everything sprang to life.”
The first of those ideas, and the starting point for the first of two half-hour AbFab specials airing on Vision TV this Thursday and July 5: Saffy has just spent two years in prison on fraud charges.
Sawalha, like Saffy, takes these things in stride. “I don’t have a reaction to storylines, as we have quite a thin grasp of the text/plot when we first start,” she says. “I never get attached to certain lines or plots, as things get cut and changed right up to the last minute.
“Though you can get a recurring joke that pops up in the next script, then gets cut again, that always makes me laugh.”
Laughter sets the tone on the AbFab set. “There is an awful lot of laughing that goes on during rehearsals . . . what I really love is seeing Jennifer laugh; it is very infectious. Also, when she is laughing, of course it is going to be at something very funny.”
Memories of those days made the decision to come back a no-brainer. “Jennifer’s enthusiasm to work with us all came across very clearly,” she says.
“I thought, ‘Are you crazy, Julia? You love working with the girls, Go have some fun.’
Jennifer Saunders says Kate Moss is the "least precious" guest star 'Absolutely Fabulous' has ever had because she doesn't care about her looks.
The 38-year-old supermodel will appear alongside comediennes Jennifer and Joanna Lumley in a one-off special of the BBC One show in aid of Sport Relief tomorrow night (23.03.12) and Jennifer revealed Kate threw herself into her cameo and wasn't worried about her appearance.
Jennifer - who is the face of the new Choccy Philly campaign - exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "We've got Kate Moss, Stella McCartney and David Gandy. We've done French and Saunders stuff with Kate before and she's been wonderful so it was great to work with her again.
She's really good, she's really professional and she looks amazing.
"She comes in, lets the hair and make-up people do whatever they want, she isn't precious about her appearance at all but I suppose when you look like that you don't need to. You can put anything on her face and she'll look good. She is honestly probably the least precious person we've had on. I suppose because she doesn't have all those hang ups about her looks like other people. She just threw herself into it and was wonderful."
She was praised for her guest performance on an Absolutely Fabulous sketch by Joanna Lumley, who plays the show's Patsy Stone.
The special instalment of the cult comedy will be shown during an evening of programmes on BBC1 in aid of charity Sport Relief 2012 this Friday.
Appearing as herself, Kate will join Essex model David Gandy and designer Stella McCartney for a meeting with boozy fashion director boss Patsy.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Saunders' character, barmy PR boss Edina "Eddy" Monsoon, will be joined by former Spice Girl Emma Bunton as she takes to the gym to work out for Sport Relief with celebrity trainers Linford Christie and Colin Jackson.
Joanna Lumley has campaigned on animal welfare issues, fought for the rights of Gurkhas, and even attempted to win membership of the all-male Garrick Club.
Now, however, the actress is planning her most daunting mission yet.
The star of Absolutely Fabulous tells Mandrake that she is to defy Foreign Office advice and journey into Iran, in search of Noah’s ark.
“I’m going to have to get my hard hat on and my bulletproof vest,” she says.
“I’ve got a new documentary to make for the end of the year, where I’m going to try and find Noah’s ark. They’ve found the ruins of something that looks like a big ship in the hills.”
Sweetie, darling! Edina and her pill-popping friend Patsy are back! Jennifer Saunders (Edina) and Joanna Lumley (Patsy) return for an all-new, second "Absolutely Fabulous" 20th Anniversary special on Logo.
Here's how Logo describes the second "Ab Fab" special:
In the newest special, titled “Job,” Edina (Saunders) takes on a celebrity client who wants to sing. When Edina discovers how awful her client’s voice really is, she'll need to recruit some help from her other clients, Emma Bunton from the Spice Girls and Lulu, to help prepare the client for her upcoming debut.
The second "Absolutely Fabulous 20th Anniversary Special" airs Mon., Feb. 6 at 10:30 p.m. EST on BBC America and Logo. Below, check out some of TV's "Ab Fab" women, past and present, who have Eddy and Pasty to thank.
Consolidated ratings help ITV1's period drama overtake EastEnders
Written By
Paul Jones
It may be set almost a century in the past, but period drama Downton Abbey has modern technology to thank for making it the most-watched Christmas Day programme of 2011.
Following the release of initial overnight viewing figures, EastEnders was pronounced the winner of the battle of 25 December telly, having beaten Downton in the 9pm slot by almost 2 million viewers.
But consolidated ratings - including viewers who recorded the show on set-top boxes and watched it in the seven days after it was broadcast - added a further 3.5 million to the ITV1 drama’s original tally of 8.1 million.
That puts Downton top of the pile, with a total of 11.6 million against 11.3 million for EastEnders, which added just 1.5 million after so-called “time-shift viewing”.
But why might viewers have opted to record Downton and watch EastEnders? Big soap storylines are, by their very nature, event TV, and catching up with drama that continues to unfold across a week is potentially more difficult than watching a stand-alone episode like Downton later on.
Downton’s two-hour running time asked viewers to sacrifice a considerable chunk of Christmas Day, too. And complaints that the last series featured an excessive amount of adverts suggest people might have recorded it so they could skip through the commercials.
Whatever the reason, the boost the consolidated figures provided for Downton also came at a cost for ITV. The Christmas Day episode of Coronation Street - ranked second based on the overnight figures - was pushed into fourth place thanks to Downton and Doctor Who, the latter gaining almost 2 million viewers from time-shift viewing, giving it a consolidated total of 10.8 million and making it the third most-watched Christmas Day programme.
Meanwhile, Absolutely Fabulous swapped places with the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special, adding 1.5 million further viewers after time-shift viewing was taken into account, for a total of 9.1 million.
Michael McIntyre's Christmas Roadshow and The Gruffalo's Child, both on BBC1, leapfrogged ITV1's Emmerdale when consolidated figures were compared with overnights, with the Queen's address to the nation on BBC1 completing the top ten programmes based on consolidated ratings.
Matthew (Dan Stevens) and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) finally find happiness
NOT SINCE Del Boy and Rodders got lucky with that £6million watch in their Peckham lock-up has there been such an uplifting Christmas special.
Writer Julian Fellowes couldn’t have crammed more festive cheer into this crowd-pleasing, feature-length episode of Downton Abbey (ITV1, Christmas Day) if he had promised a yule log and a fireside chat with Lord Grantham to every viewer.
Downton just had it all and seemed especially gift-wrapped for the season.
It even resolved (for now) several plotlines that have kept us hooked, with added period flummery along the way.
We had an engagement, a nasty cad, a flirty bit, a dognapping, much business with a ouija board, a shooting party and finally a fist fight. carson even received that spiffing present from his Lordship, a book about european royalty, a real must-have. “i will certainly be enjoying that m’lord!” he chuntered. Hilarious.
I defy anyone not to have been entertained by this episode, even if they were sleeping off Christmas.
Downton brought a warmth to the room.
We even caught sight of a christmas pudding, although we missed out on seeing the entire christmas table. Mrs Patmore must have had an attack of the vapours.
So what of the engagement?
Matthew Crawley and Lady Mary, in true Mills and Boon style, finally had an impediment to their happiness removed: a nasty newspaper baron.
With Iain Glen’s sir Richard Carlisle off the scene, Matthew did the decent thing and forgave Lady Mary for her dalliance with turkish diplomat Mr Pamuk.
We don’t wish to hear about that again, thank you.
Ever the gentleman, but with prompting, Matthew went down on bended knee in the fake snow to ask for her hand in marriage.
Before she said yes, we expected Mrs Patmore to rush out and declare her buns were on fire or that Lavinia had suddenly been found alive in the pantry.
As it turned out, nothing happened to spoil themoment. However, this was far from the highlight of the episode.ere are precious few punches thrown on television nowadays (unless it’s in eastenders) so the sight of two gentlemen “duking it out” on primetime TV in the Downton Abbey drawing room was a delight.
For some reason (important research), I’ve caught two John Wayne films recently and Matthew crawley wouldn’t have been out of place in the shootist. the poor dear even broke the skin on his knuckles. Bless. the only thing that would have topped this was a gentlemen’s duel on the front lawn with pistols. next series, please, Mr Fellowes.
THERE was much to applaud in Great Expectations (BBC1, Tuesday).
This new adaptation over three nights comes to the small screen with the long shadow cast from David Lean’s wonderful film still with us.
Although that film first aired on Boxing Day 1946, it is impossible to forget the image of John Mills as Pip.
It also chills me when the BBc says it is going to remake a classic using the words “bold” and “visceral” in the same sentence.
There was no need for concern, however, as the BBC treated us to the most atmospheric Dickens for many years.
there were some splendid performances too from both Pips in the first episode but the BAFtA- nudging turn came from Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham. she was mad, intriguing, devilish and creepy; pure Havisham.
Ray Winstone’s Magwitch, too, was like a grease monkey who had been dragged backwards through a car engine. His scenes with Pip on the marshes were chilling and tormenting.However, it was the very words of Dickens that shone brightly through the mists of the marshes.
“If you can’t beat a boy at Christmas, when can you?” barked Pumblechook excitedly.
We all cheered for the seasonal return of corporal punishment or for Estella’s coldness to innocent Pip: “I suppose you don’t have time for the modern wonders of the world.”
There is nothing more enjoyably manipulative than a well-turned Dickens at Christmas.
When is a sitcom dead? Happily, we can report that there seemed to be much life left in Absolutely Fabulous (Christmas Day, BBC1). Indeed, the older the characters get, the funnier it becomes.
Jennifer Saunders’s writing is better than ever with pretty much a gag a line in this rollicking 30 minutes of comedy.
It is hard to believe that Ab Fab has been around since 1994. There were great performances too from Saunders, Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha (who had successfully escaped from the post office in Candleford).
Jane Horrocks also did a marvellous cameo, mocking Pippa Middleton’s walk down the aisle at the Royal Wedding. However, it was the topical gags which made the episode so funny, not least the new disease called “the Kardashians, multiplying before our eyes”.
The dream sequence involving the star of gritty Danish drama The Killing was inspired. Could there be scope for a new series? We hope so.
Finally, Laurence Fox was allowed out of Oxford and away from Lewis for Fast Freddie, The Widow And Me (ITV1, Tuesday), the made-to-order Christmas weepie.
You know that if a child walks into a hospice in the first five minutes you are not in comedy-drama territory.
Despite the bizarreness of the idea, in which millionaire Fox “hired a family” for the dying teenager, you kept watching and wondering when Freddie would twig. He did, eventually, and the nasty posh car salesman (Fox) was redeemed.
Expect a sequel in which he gives a Bentley to a starving tribe in Africa.
OLD faves are coming back and new shows will win hearts faster than Downton's Mr Crawley leaping from a wheelchair. Here LUCY CONNOLLY looks ahead to 2012's TV treats.
January
THE year gets off to a cracking start with great new series and some welcome returns.
Tomorrow sees the start of the second series of BBC1's Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
Call The Midwife, starring Miranda Hart and Jenny Agutter, will be new to BBC1. It follows the lives of a group of midwives in the Fifties in London's East End. And the con is back on, for the last time, as Hustle returns.
Gavin and Stacey's Ruth Jones makes her first solo outing in Sky1's new sitcom Stella. On the same channel you can also catch the second series of Mad Dogs, starring Philip Glenister and Max Beesley.
Final series ... Desperate Housewives
ABC
Dancing On Ice returns to ITV1 with some changes — new host Christine Bleakley takes over from Holly Willoughby and Katarina Witt and Louie Spence join the judging panel to replace Emma Bunton and Jason Gardiner. Ciaran Hinds returns in ITV1's Above Suspicion: Silent Scream.
The ladies of Wisteria Lane return to Channel 4 for the eighth — and final — series of Desperate Housewives and Shameless is back too.
Much-loved ... Shameless
Channel 4
The adventures of the young Inspector Morse are told in ITV1's Endeavour while a new drama about angels, Eternal Law, starts.
Elf star Zooey Deschanel tries her hand at TV in the Channel 4 sitcom New Girl, new journalism comedy Hacks starts, One Born Every Minute returns and Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy is coming to E4.
Second series ... Sherlock
BBC
February
NEW series starting this month include Birdsong, a BBC1 adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' novel set during the First World War.
There's also Inside Men — a drama with Steven Mackintosh about staffers at a security depot who plan a robbery.
Racing drama ... Dustin Hoffman
Flynet
Hollyoaks' Emma Rigby stars in Prisoners' Wives and This Is England's Vicky McClure joins Gina McKee and Neil Morrissey for new BBC2 police drama Line Of Duty.
Dustin Hoffman comes to Sky Atlantic in Luck, a drama about horse racing. And Chris Moyles and Stacey Solomon will host Sky Living's new dating show Love Machine.
Adaptation ... Birdsong
BBC
Claire Danes plays a Jack Bauer-style anti-terrorism agent in top new US drama Homeland, showing on More4, while 2 Broke Girls is a new US sitcom about ex-waitresses who set up a cupcake shop.
Returning shows include Room 101 with new host Frank Skinner plus Upstairs Downstairs, Waterloo Road, Whitechapel, Wild At Heart, Midsomer Murders, Benidorm, Being Human, True Blood and BBC4's Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve. Harry Hill is back for his final series of TV Burp on ITV1.
Spring
THE BBC's answer to The X Factor, The Voice, starts in March, with celebrity mentors including Jessie J, Will.i.am and Tom Jones.
Holly Willoughby and Reggie Yates are on presenting duties.
Spring will also see the arrival of the fifth series of smash US drama Mad Men to Sky Atlantic.The channel will also host the return of Game Of Thrones.
In April, Britain's Got Talent will be back, with Ant and Dec hosting and a judging panel rumoured to include David Walliams, Samantha Womack and Paul O'Grady.
David Tennant and Billie Piper team up with David Morrissey and Lacey Turner for BBC1's improvised drama Love Life.
Another former Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston, will star in new drama The Fuse as an alcoholic accidental hero.
Business challenge ... The Apprentice
Titanic — a lavish four-part drama from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes — will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the liner in April. It will star Linus Roache, Toby Jones and Celia Imrie.
Popular dramas Scott & Bailey, Vera, Lewis, Case Sensitive and Munro will all return to ITV1. Sky1 will see another series of Strike Back plus the start of Smash — described as a "grown-up Glee" and starring Jack Davenport and Will & Grace's Debra Messing.
The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd writes and stars in Sky1's Moone Boy, a semi-autobiographical sitcom about a lad growing up in Ireland.
Acclaimed ... Mad Men
In the wake of the success of The Killing, BBC4 has snapped up several new Scandinavian dramas, including Borgen, Sebastian Bergman and The Bridge. There will also be more episodes of Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh.
There's a new Stephen Poliakoff BBC2 drama, Dancing On The Edge, which stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a jazz musician in 1930s London.
Stephen Graham and Warren Brown team up for the BBC1 hard-hitting crime drama Savage, set in Liverpool.
There will also be a series of Shakespeare adaptations, with plays including Richard II and Henry V brought to the screen with star-studded casts including John Hurt, Patrick Stewart, Maxine Peake and Julie Walters. May will see the return of The Apprentice and the 57th Eurovision Song Contest comes from Azerbaijan.
Summer
IT'S set to be a summer of wall-to-wall sport on the box with some huge events taking place.
And there's none bigger than the Olympics and Paralympics, especially as London, together with other UK venues, will be playing host.
Comeback ... Dallas
Scope
Football fans will enjoy the European Championships, taking place in Poland and the Ukraine, and there will also be tennis at Wimbledon, the Tour de France and British Open.
To tie in with the Olympics, there will be a new Absolutely Fabulous special as well as BBC1 drama Bert And Dickie.
It will star Doctor Who's Matt Smith and will tell the story of British rowers Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell, who won gold at the 1948 Olympics.
Olympic story ... Matt Smith
The big non-sporting TV event of the summer has to be the return of the huge 1980s US soap Dallas, which has been revamped and will air on Channel Five.
All the original stars will return — Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy — and they will be joined by a new generation of Ewings, including Desperate Housewives' Jesse Metcalfe. Timothy Spall and Gavin & Stacey's Joanna Page will be in new BBC1 comedy drama The Syndicate.
It is written by Kay Mellor and follows supermarket workers in Leeds who win the Lotto.
New series ... X Factor
The Hour will be back on BBC2 for a second series, with The Thick Of It's Peter Capaldi joining the cast.
Other returning series include My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Mount Pleasant, The Accused, Silk, The Big C, Poirot, Miss Marple, DCI Banks and Kidnap And Ransom.
Charlie Brooker takes the mickey out of police dramas with A Touch Of Cloth, a new comedy for Sky1 starring John Hannah and Suranne Jones. And cult film Napoleon Dynamite gets a cartoon remake for a new animated series on Channel 4.
Then in August, it's time to face the music again.
The X Factor returns with a judging panel including . . . who knows?
Autumn
SEPTEMBER sees the return of some of 2011's top shows, from a new series of Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey to the long-awaited third run of award-winning sitcom Miranda which moves from BBC2 to BBC1.
October brings the 40th anniversary of Emmerdale — no doubt there will be some explosive storylines to celebrate.
Tenth series ... Red Dwarf
BBC
In November it is Channel 4's 30th anniversary with a special Big Fat Quiz hosted by Jimmy Carr.
Matt Smith will once again be back as Doctor Who, with Karen Gillan as his companion. But this series will be her last as Amy Pond's departure from the Tardis has already been announced.
There will be a new crime drama on BBC1, Nemesis, which stars former Home And Away actress Melissa George and Mistresses' Adam Rayner.
Back on screens ... Downton Abbey
ITV
ITV1 will air The Scapegoat, an adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier short story set in 1952 and starring Matthew Rhys, Dame Eileen Atkins and Sheridan Smith.
Some of the country's top comic actresses — Julia Davis, Sharon Horgan and Olivia Colman — will star in Bad Sugar, a new sitcom on Channel 4.
Return ... Strictly Come Dancing
Jack Whitehall has been given his own BBC3 show, Bad Education, in which the young comic both writes and stars as useless secondary school teacher Alfie.
The gritty, critically-acclaimed drama Top Boy will be back for a second series while Red Dwarf makes a return on Dave for an incredible tenth series, with original cast members including Craig Charles.
Fortieth anniversary ... Emmerdale
Sky Atlantic will screen Veep, a new HBO series from comedy anarchists Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris.
Sienna Miller will star in The Girl, a BBC2 feature-length drama about Alfred Hitchcock. In it she plays his love obsession Tippi Hedren — the actress who played the lead in The Birds.
At Christmas there will be specials of The Royle Family and Doctor Who — and a remake of The Snowman on Channel 4.
Out with the old...
DESPITE two trophies at this month's British Comedy Awards and higher ratings than ever, BBC2's Shooting Stars was axed.
And, after their successful transfer to the big screen, The Inbetweeners won't return for any more TV series either.
Out ... Secret Diary Of A Call Girl
Spooks bowed out in 2011 with an explosive finale, as did long-running crime dramas Taggart and Waking The Dead.
After four series, Billie Piper hung up her saucy underwear and won't be back for any more Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, while last orders were also called on Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps.
Finished ... The Inbetweeners
Critically acclaimed comedy drama Sirens, following a group of paramedics, sadly won't be returning to Channel 4.
And there are a couple of big US dramas which, after just one series, won't be back, including The Event and Pan Am.
Axed ... Shooting Stars
Other cancelled shows include Entourage and Brothers & Sisters.
Sci-fi fans were devastated to discover Doctor Who Confidential won't be back, Smallville had reached the end of the road and the Beeb's big budget drama Outcasts was culled after just one series.
Co-creator Jennifer Saunders and co-star Joanna Lumley to star in movie version.
LONDON – Jennifer Saunders, the co-creator of the BBC award-winning series Absolutely Fabulous, has said she plans to make a big screen version of the TV show.
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Saunders has set the Internet alight with reports that she is planning a movie version of the show, which returned to the small screen over the Christmas season on BBC to ratings success and a posititve critical reception.
The comedy show featuring Saunders as Eddy, her sidekick Patsy played by Joanna Lumley and copious amounts of champagne, aims to capitalize on the show’s long-running popularity.
First airing on BBC in 1992, the comedy about a fashionista PR and her hard-drinking, smoking sidekick has scored numerous awards including a best comedy show BAFTA in 1993 and an Emmy for best popular arts program the following year.
This year’s Christmas special, penned by Saunders, marked the show’s return to the small screen after an absence of six years.
The Christmas special garnered around nine million viewers with another episode to air on New Year’s Day.
According to reports, Saunders said she is “definitely going to do” a movie version.
“I’m aiming to shoot this in a beautiful part of the Riviera. I fancy the south of France in the spring,” Saunders said.
There is another Ab Fab TV outing planned for 2012, with a storyline set around the Olympics.
Michael Deacon reviews the three biggest highlights of the Christmas TV schedules: Great Expectations (BBC One), Absolutely Fabulous (BBC One) and Downton Abbey (ITV1).
Great Expectations: Douglas Booth and Gillian Anderson star in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel.Photo: BBC
The defining scene in BBC One’s new version of Great Expectations (Tue-Thu) was the death of Miss Havisham, the jilted bride who lives in her wedding dress. In Dickens’s novel, her dress catches light when she sits too near the fire; she dies weeks later from shock. In the adaptation, however, she solemnly lowered her veil, made a pyre of her ex-fiancé’s love letters, then stepped into the blaze and burnt herself to death.
It can’t be easy to make Great Expectations more melodramatic than it already is, but the BBC managed it.
The novel tells the story from boyhood to majority of Pip, a penniless Kentish orphan. Given Dickens’s taste for the fantastical it may seem unfair to criticise an adaptation for its implausibility, but I rather lost faith in this one the moment it introduced us to the full-grown Pip (Douglas Booth).
Having entered the pupa of adolescence as a scowling urchin (Oscar Kennedy), he emerged as an androgynous heart-throb with a boy-band fringe, exquisitely shaped eyebrows, and skin of aftershave-advert purity. For some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, it was difficult to believe in this pouting beauty as a Victorian blacksmith’s apprentice.
Still, he didn’t linger in so unseemly a milieu for long; thanks to his unexpected expectations, so to speak, he fled to London to become a gentleman, or at any rate a stuck-up little twit. But though he looked a convincing fop, he didn’t look a convincing Pip. Pip is meant to be a plain, unprepossessing boy who yearns for a girl, Estella, in every respect out of his league; if Pip’s is by far the most photogenic face on view, it’s hard to see why he’s so dazzled by her.
There was little sense of how funny Dickens is. Even his bleakest novels are rich in comedy.
Watching this adaptation, I found myself wondering why Tim Burton has never done Dickens; if anyone can capture his fairy-tale ghastliness and macabre wit, it’s the director of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice. Next year, as it happens, Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter, will star in a film of Great Expectations – but the director is not Burton but Mike Newell, of Four Weddings and a Funeral. What will it take to make Burton fulfil his artistic duty? A visitation from the Ghost of Movies Yet to Come?
Absolutely Fabulous (BBC One, Christmas Day) returned with its first episode in six years. Patsy (Joanna Lumley), the awful fashion editor, and Eddy (Jennifer Saunders), the awful PR woman, were bickering with Eddy’s daughter, Saffy (Julia Sawalha). Patsy had just revealed that her magazine pays her no salary.
Saffy: “You must have paid national insurance. What about your pension?”
Eddy: “How dare you!”
Patsy: “I’m 39!”
The episode was spoilt somewhat by the studio audience, who made it feel like a half-hour lap of honour. When Lumley tottered on to the set they cheered as if she’d brought home six Olympic golds. Even the weakest gags prompted ecstasies of applause. It was eerie. I don’t know whether a North Korean dictator has ever made a sitcom, but if one did, I imagine the laughter track would sound like this.
Fans of Downton Abbey (ITV1, Christmas Day) say people who knock it are snobs. An odd criticism, given that as Downton fans they must by definition love snobs. The great thing about Downton, though, is that you don’t have to take it seriously to enjoy it. In fact, those who think it’s nonsense probably gain more pleasure from it than those who think it’s first-class drama.
The Christmas special practically squelched with romance. Matthew Crawley continued to mope about Lady Mary (“I deserve to be unhappy!”). Nigel Havers wooed Lady Rosamund. Countless others took it in turns to pine, sob, sigh and kiss. It was like a period-set Nescafé Gold Blend advert, and surely brought more good cheer to the public than anything else on television over Christmas, unless you count the title of ITV’s one-off music show Westlife: For the Last Time.
The Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) was in splendidly camp form. “No fortune? He’s lucky not to be playing the violin in Leicester Square!” Her character is doubtless meant to be like Lady Bracknell but really she has more in common with those wonderful wisecracking matriarchs who used to light up Coronation Street, except that no one on Corrie would pronounce Square as Squaaah.
Fans will have adored the climax, in which Matthew proposed (again) to Lady Mary, but for me the highlight was, as ever, the Earl of Grantham’s chest. My interest is purely scientific. The Earl’s chest is so perfectly convex as to be an anatomical impossibility. He has curves Dolly Parton can only dream of. He looks like Desperate Dan in a dicky-bow. And, just as Samson’s powers resided in his hair, so the Earl’s powers reside in his chest. Towards the end, Matthew and his love rival, Sir Richard Carlisle, came to blows. You knew the game was up for Sir Richard when the Earl’s chest burst angrily into the room, followed five seconds later by the rest of him.
