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| Writers | Dawn French Jennifer Saunders |
|---|---|
| Actors | Dawn French Jennifer Saunders |
| First appearance | French and Saunders (19 April 1990) |
| Basis | Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2012) |
"Modern Mother and Daughter" is a sketch from the third series of French and Saunders , written by and starring Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The sketch later served as the basis of Saunders' sitcom Absolutely Fabulous in 1992.
Saffron is an ordinary teenager, busy completing her homework in her bedroom one evening. Her mother, Adriana, enters, dressed in a brightly-printed kaftan, with an acid house-inspired outfit underneath. Adriana tries several times to persuade Saffron to join her party downstairs, inviting her to "share a joint" with her and her guests, to Saffron's disapproval.
Adriana continues her attention-seeking questioning, disrupting her daughter's attempts to complete her homework. She questions Saffron's university plans – studying physics in Aberdeen, her reluctance to join her mother on holiday, and her warm relationship with her father. (Adriana, by contrast, has nothing but hostility towards her ex-husband.) The sketch ends with Adriana saying she's "hoping" her boyfriend Jean-Pierre will stay over, to which Saffron hands a pack of condoms to her mother, saying she was aware her mother had run out of them. [1]
The sketch transposes the traditional roles of mother and daughter, with the daughter behaving and dressing conventionally while the mother rebels. This characterisation and the relationship between the two characters was later carried over into Saunders' sitcom Absolutely Fabulous . In the series, Saunders reprised her role as the mother, renamed Edina, while Julia Sawalha played her role as the daughter, Saffron, replacing French. Lines from the sketch were reused in the series, such as Adriana's insistence that it is possible to be a socialist while employing household staff, and Saffron's nickname from her mother of "Sweetie".
Absolutely Fabulous 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.
Dame June Rosemary Whitfield was an English radio, television, and film actress.
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English actress, comedian, screenwriter, and singer. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with her best friend and comedy partner, Dawn French. With French, she co-wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, French and Saunders, for which they jointly received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2009. Saunders later received acclaim in the 1990s for writing and playing her character Edina Monsoon in her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comedy duo and namesake Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act. The show was originally broadcast on BBC Two from 1987 to 1993, and was given one of the highest budgets in BBC history to create detailed spoofs and satires of popular culture, movies, celebrities, and art. French and Saunders continued to film holiday specials for the BBC, and both have been individually successful starring in other shows.
Julia Sawalha is an English actress, who is best known for her role as Saffron "Saffy" Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. She is also known for portraying Lynda Day, editor of the Junior Gazette, in Press Gang, Lydia Bennet in the 1995 television miniseries of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and voicing Ginger in Chicken Run. Additionally, she played Dorcas Lane in the BBC's costume drama Lark Rise to Candleford, Carla Borrego in Jonathan Creek, and Jan Ward in the 2014 BBC One mystery Remember Me.
Dawn Roma French is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show French and Saunders with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders, and played the lead role as Geraldine Granger in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009.
Robert Alexander Spiers was a Scottish television comedy director and producer. He worked on many sitcoms and won two British Academy Television Awards for his work on Fawlty Towers and Absolutely Fabulous.
Katherine Lucy Bridget Burke is an English actress, comedian, writer, producer, and director. She achieved fame with her appearances on sketch shows such as French and Saunders (1988–1999) and her recurring role as Magda on the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012), as well as her frequent collaborations with fellow comedian Harry Enfield. For her portrayal of Valerie in the 1997 film Nil by Mouth, she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Helen Margaret Lederer is an English comedian, writer and actress who emerged as part of the alternative comedy boom at the beginning of the 1980s. Among her television credits are the BBC2 sketch series Naked Video and BBC One's Absolutely Fabulous, in which she played the role of Catriona.
Harriet Amelia Thorpe is an English actress. Thorpe trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. She is known for her roles in the British sitcoms, The Brittas Empire (1991–97) and Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012) and has also starred in the West End musicals, Cabaret (2006), Wicked (2008) and Mamma Mia! (2010).
Patsy Stone is one of the two main characters from the British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, portrayed by actress Joanna Lumley.
Edina "Eddie" Margaret Rose Monsoon is one of the two main characters in the British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, created and portrayed by comedian Jennifer Saunders, and based on Saunders' real-life friend, Lynne Franks.
Absolutely Fabulous is a 2001 French comedy film co-written and directed by Gabriel Aghion. It is an adaptation of the British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, created by Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French.
The first series of the British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous premiered on BBC Two on 12 November 1992 and concluded on 17 December 1992, consisting of six episodes. The sitcom was created and written by Jennifer Saunders, who starred in the title role of Edina Monsoon, a heavy-drinking, smoking, and drug-abusing PR agent who has dedicated most of her life to looking "fabulous" and desperately attempts to stay young. Edina is nicknamed 'Eddie' by her best friend, Patsy Stone, a magazine editor who constantly takes advantage of Edina by living the life of luxury in Edina's extravagant home. Edina is a twice-divorced mother of two. Her eldest child, a son, Serge, left home many years before in order to escape his mother's clutches. Her long-suffering daughter, Saffron 'Saffy', whom Edina is reliant upon, is a sixth form student and remains at home. The series also includes Edina's sweet-natured-but-slightly-batty mother, whom Edina sees as an interfering burden, and Edina's dim-witted assistant Bubble.
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is a 2016 comedy film directed by Mandie Fletcher, written by Jennifer Saunders and based on the television series Absolutely Fabulous. It stars Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks, reprising their roles from the series. The film finds the drug-addicted, alcoholic PR agent Edina Monsoon and her best friend/codependent Patsy Stone on the run from the authorities after it is suspected they killed supermodel Kate Moss. The film serves as a de facto series finale for the show.
The third series of the British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous premiered on BBC One on 30 March 1995 and concluded on 11 May 1995, consisting of six episodes. The third series was originally intended to be the final series of Absolutely Fabulous. However, the following year, Jennifer Saunders decided to write a two-part special titled "The Last Shout", serving as an official finale to the third series. Two additional series were eventually produced.
The fourth series of British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous premiered on BBC One on 31 August 2001 and concluded on 5 October 2001, consisting of six episodes. Originally, Absolutely Fabulous was to end with the third series, then two-part special "The Last Shout" was created to serve as an official finale to the series. However, in 2000, Jennifer Saunders created and wrote a television pilot for a proposed new series, Mirrorball, in which she intended to reunite the cast of Absolutely Fabulous in new roles and a different plot. Saunders, along with Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks and June Whitfield, returned for the pilot, but the series was never commissioned. Nevertheless, Mirrorball inspired Saunders to revive Absolutely Fabulous and a fourth series was produced. A Christmas special, "Gay", was produced following the fourth series and was broadcast in 2002.
The fifth and final series of the British television sitcom Absolutely Fabulous premiered on BBC One on 17 October 2003 and concluded on 24 December 2003, consisting of eight episodes. A Christmas special, "White Box", followed the fifth series and was broadcast in 2004. Though no further series have followed, three specials were broadcast several years later to mark the show's 20th anniversary for 2012.