Absolutely Fabulous (often shortened to Ab Fab) is a British television sitcom created and written by Jennifer Saunders, which premiered in 1992.

Saunders stars as Edina Monsoon, a heavy-drinking, drug-abusing PR mogul who spends her time failing to lose weight and chasing bizarre fads in a desperate attempt to stay young and "hip".

Edina relies upon the support of her daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha), a student and aspiring writer whose constant care of her immature mother has left her a bitter cynic.

Ab Fab also stars June Whitfield in a supporting role as Edina's dotty, sarcastic and often thieving mother, who appears in nearly every episode.

[2] Edina "Eddie" Monsoon (Saunders) and Patricia "Patsy" Stone (Lumley) are two high-powered career women on the London fashion scene.

The two women use their considerable financial resources to indulge in cigarettes, alcohol (most notably Bollinger Champagne) 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.

Their lifestyle inevitably leads to various personal crises, which are invariably resolved by Eddie's daughter, Saffron "Saffy" Monsoon (Sawalha), whose constant involvement in their exploits has left her increasingly bitter and cynical.

Also recurring in their lives are Eddie's ex-husbands, Marshall and Justin, and their respective new partners, the American hippie Bo and the acidic antique dealer Oliver.

[3] It has no connection, other than the character's name, to the earlier film, Eddie Monsoon: A Life?, a comedy play written by Saunders' husband Adrian Edmondson in 1984 for the TV series, The Comic Strip Presents....

French was originally intended to play Edina's daughter, Saffron, but a younger actress (Sawalha) was ultimately cast.

Saunders revived the show for a fourth series in 2001 after writing and submitting a pilot entitled Mirrorball, which recruited nearly all of the original cast in new roles.

The third and final special, aired on 23 July 2012, coincided with the 2012 Summer Olympics[8] in London, with Stella McCartney appearing in a cameo role.

All of the originals who are back together again are still truly absolutely fabulous and the new adventures of Edina, Patsy, Saffy, Bubble and Mother, plus a few surprising guests, will be a real treat for viewers."

[14][15] The theme song for Absolutely Fabulous is "This Wheel's on Fire", written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko and performed by Julie Driscoll and Saunders' Comic Strip fellow and later husband, Adrian Edmondson.

Also excised from the US DVD release is the musical number from Chicago performed by Horrocks, Gaffney, and Ryan during a dream sequence in the series 5 episode "Birthin'".

The music video featured clips from the show and specially recorded footage of the Pet Shop Boys with Patsy and Edina.

[18] On 29 November 2016, Jennifer Saunders confirmed that she was "done" with Absolutely Fabulous and that it would not return to television for another series or specials, nor would a sequel to the film be made.

Lumley said that June Whitfield's death in December 2018 also meant it was less likely to happen, but said if Saunders wished to write new Ab Fab stories, she would be up for returning to play Patsy; she said "wait and see".

[21][22] Some public television stations have also broadcast it, but not as part of the PBS program offerings, in addition to BBC America, Oxygen Network, and as of 2011, Logo, a gay-oriented channel.

But the characters are originals, and AbFab has the courage of its convictions, encouraging audiences to find humor in such recent comedic taboos as substance abuse or mistreated offspring.

[47] A proposed American remake that would have starred Carrie Fisher and Barbara Carrera was put into motion by Roseanne Barr but never materialised.

Saturday Night Live writer Christine Zander worked on the new scripts and would have been executive producer along with Saunders and BBC Worldwide's Ian Moffitt.

Sony Pictures Television, BBC Worldwide, and indie Tantamount were producing the new series for Fox, which greenlighted the pilot as a possible Fall 2009 entry[52][53][54] with Kathryn Hahn as Eddy and Kristen Johnston as Patsy.

Mirrorball was a pilot set in the London theatre scene, starring the cast of Absolutely Fabulous as alternative characters.

While writing and filming the show, Saunders was inspired to revive Absolutely Fabulous for a fourth series, which resulted in her abandoning Mirrorball.

[59][60] In 2011, before the release of the new episodes for 2011/2012, Deadline Hollywood reported that Saunders planned to begin writing a script for a film of Absolutely Fabulous in 2012.

[64] On 4 January 2014 whilst appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show, Saunders officially confirmed that the movie will definitely be happening, as she felt obliged to write a script for a film adaptation after threatening it for so long.

[66] In April 2014, Saunders again confirmed on BBC Breakfast that she was in the process of writing the film, and gave a prospective release date of sometime during 2015.

Absolutely Fabulous was initially released on VHS in the UK by BBC Video ending with the eight-VHS box set Series 1–4 in November 2002.

Save for "The Last Shout" and the specials "Gay" (aka "Absolutely Fabulous in New York") and "White Box", the entire series is available to stream via Hulu.