Jennifer Saunders: 'I couldn't afford to have an ounce of cynicism' The Ab Fab star on writing her Spice Girls musical, why she loves playing Edina and the joy of being a granny Interview by Tim Adams (GUARDIAN)

‘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…

READ MORE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/nov/18/jennifer-saunders-spice-girls-interview