Comedy duo Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley brought some champagne glamour to London’s Leicester Square for the premiere of the long-awaited Absolutely Fabulous Movie.
A gang of screaming fans in Eddy and Patsy masks and hot pink Ab Fab t-shirts lined the sparkling gold carpet to greet the star-studded cast.
Saunders and Lumley were joined by other Ab Fab favourites including Julia Sawalha (best known as Saffy), June Whitfield and Bubble, played by Jane Horrocks, at the European premiere.
Lumley and Saunders (Ian West/PA)
When asked about the 25 years fans have had to wait for the film, Saunders said: “We have had some TV in between, it’s only been four years since the last TV and I think now because we just fancied it.”
Lumley added: “We were sitting together and said ‘where would we like to go?’ and said the south of France and that’s what started the whole thing off.”
She said killing off Kate Moss in the movie was Saunders’ idea and joked: “She’s got a savage nature.”
Saunders, Moss and Lumley (Joel Ryan/AP)
Lumley revealed at the beginning of the week that Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch had declined a cameo because he was too busy.
“He told me he was going to be in it and I said ‘when?’,” she added. “Then he wasn’t – he thought he was in it but he wasn’t.”
She added: “No one else said no, Jennifer was beating them off with sticks.”
Kylie Minogue sings the theme song to the film (Ian West/PA)
Director Mandie Fletcher said the cast, which included dozens of A-list cameos, had “great fun” during filming.
“Everyone wanted to be in it so of course everyone was having great fun with it,” she added.
“There’s certainly enough women in this film. I think we’ve made up for a lot. The nice thing is it’s women of a certain age – no one is hot in it. It’s just funny so it’s good.”
Emma Bunton (Ian West/PA)
The big screen version of the popular TV series sees Eddy (Saunders) and Patsy (Lumley) embroiled in a PR nightmare after accidentally “killing off Kate Moss”.
An unfortunate accident at a trendy launch party sees them pushing model Moss into the Thames.
The pair are then forced to flee to the French Riviera to escape the media storm surrounding her disappearance.
The film sees stars like Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, Pitch Perfect’s Rebel Wilson and Spice Girl Emma Bunton all making cameos.
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie opens in UK cinemas on July 1.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article