Absolutely Fabulous: Every single drop

In the early nineties, I was Edina Monsoon

Not literally of course. But I was a middle-aged, twice-divorced single mother who went about with her batty blonde friend, drinking, smoking and reminiscing about the hippy days. And that's exactly what this TV series is about.

My friend Kath was blonde and gorgeous, I had curly red hair and we were known locally as 'Edina and Patsy' - the two main characters in the show. Were we quite as daft?

Every episode, one set

The early nineties was a great time for British comedy on the telly. And yet for some reason I decided to abandon the country and move to the States. Television-wise, this was a mistake (but completely wonderful in every other way) because it meant that I missed later episodes of my favourite comedy shows.

Amazon to the rescue

Like just about everyone today, I shop online at Amazon and gradually, over the years, I have discovered that my favorite British programs have been released as boxed sets and available in the USA. I'm not going to say that this was life-changing exactly but it certainly perked up our evenings enormously.

Weird stuff on the internet

I've read some very strange things about Absolutely Fabulous online. And if you've never seen this show before I would urge you to pay no attention to what's written (except what I say, naturally!) and if you read, as I have, things about 'drug abuse', 'dysfunctional family', 'promiscuous' and other cliched terms, just believe me when I say that this show is not a social comment, not a study in relationships; it's just, as we Brits say, bloody funny.

Some kind person on YouTube has assembled what they call 'the best bits'. I'm glad I didn't have that job - it would take forever as there are so many.

The show attracted many guest appearances - scroll down to see the list and some quotes from the program.

This video is simply hilarious. Meet some of the guest stars such as Whoopi Goldberg. See regular characters - there's Edina's mum, Saffy and the wonderful, marvelous Bubble.

There are,I think, several reasons.

The first is that for those of 'of a certain age' we can identify. We might not be quite as daft, we're almost certainly not as rich, but for those of in that age bracket the chances are that we knew (or know) people who are almost exactly like Edina and Patsy.

Even if they are not exactly the same, then they - and other characters - are caricatures of people we know or have known.

The younger generation of course, recognise characteristics they see in their own parents, or their parents' friends.

Maybe Patsy and Edina are what we would be like, had we the same incomes.

Another reason is that we can see which way the plots are going. We can see that there are pitfalls on the way. Why can't they?

The acting, of course, is superb. Jennifer Saunders may seem to be upstaged somewhat by Joanna Lumley but remember that Jennifer is the writer too as well as a prominent actress.

There is also a wonderful fascination in seeing Joanna Lumley in such a brilliant comedy role.

We always knew she was gorgeous. She has always played the parts of glamourous, upper-class women. In Ab Fab we see her in a comedy role that is so unlike the previous roles she has played.Have you noticed too that she really seems to enjoy the role?

In fact,all the actors seemed to have a whale of a time making this series. See the out takes in the video below to see what I mean.

Remember that this is British - you know what we're like - so profanity alert.