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Absolutely Fabulous (originally titled Ab Fab) is a British television sitcom based on the French and Saunders sketch, "Modern Mother and Daughter", created by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The show was created and written by Saunders, who also stars as one of the main characters with Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha.
Edina "Eddy" Monsoon (Saunders) and Patricia "Patsy" Stone (Lumley) are a pair of high-powered career women on the London fashion scene. Eddy runs her own PR firm, and Patsy holds a sinecure position at a top British fashion magazine.
The two women use their considerable financial resources to indulge in cigarettes, alcohol and recreational drugs and to chase the latest fads in an attempt to maintain their youth and recapture their glory days as Mods in swinging London. The partnership is largely driven by Patsy, who is both co-dependent and an enabler to Eddy.
Their lifestyle inevitably leads to a variety of personal crises, which are invariably resolved by Eddy's daughter, Saffron "Saffy" Monsoon (Sawalha), whose constant involvement in their exploits has left her increasingly bitter and cynical.
Eddy's mother is also present in their routines, often helping Saffy with the cooking and cleaning at home; despite this, though, Eddy and Mother have a strained relationship, rarely being left alone together and disagreeing on virtually everything.
Also recurring in their lives are both of Eddy's ex-husbands, Marshall and Justin, and their respective new partners, the American hippie Bo, and the acidic antique dealer Oliver.
The first three series were broadcast on the BBC from 1992 to 1995, followed by a series finale in the form of a two-part television film entitled The Last Shout in 1996. Saunders revived the show for a fourth series in 2001, after having written and submitted a pilot entitled Mirrorball, which recruited nearly all of the original cast in new roles. The pilot was intended to be turned into a series of episodes. However, Saunders felt the characters were too rich and interesting to put aside, and were far better suited for her new story ideas. Instead of Mirrorball, a new series of Absolutely Fabulous was proposed to the BBC, which later commissioned the fourth series in 2001. From 2001 to 2004, two full series were produced, along with two one-off hour-long specials; Gay (retitled and issued as Absolutely Fabulous in New York for the United States) in 2002, and White Box (another series finale), which aired in 2004. A Comic Relief sketch was broadcast in 2005.
In August 2011, Lumley confirmed the planned filming of three new episodes. In 2011, plans for a 20th anniversary revival were welcomed in The Guardian, which applauded the show as "prophetic". The first new special of Absolutely Fabulous: 20th Anniversary was broadcast on 25 December with the second episode being shown on 1 January 2012. The third and final special, aired on 23 July 2012, coincided with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, with Stella McCartney appearing in a cameo role. A sketch for Sport Relief was also broadcast in 2012. A film version of the series, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, was released to theaters in the summer of 2016. In 2000, the show was ranked number 17 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes by the British Film Institute.
In the United States, the first of the three new 20th anniversary specials aired in January 2012 for broadcast by both BBC America and Logo Channel. Both channels also co-produced the 20th Anniversary episodes, although Logo removed some scenes for its airings. BBC America broadcast it in full. Both channels aired the episode in a 40-minute block to allow for commercial interruptions.
Episodes of Absolutely Fabulous were shot in front of a live studio audience.
Source: Wikipedia.org