Television series

Absolutely Fabulous

Name: Absolutely Fabulous
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1992
Cast: Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield, Jane Horrocks

Ab Fab is the champagne-soaked chaos of Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone, two ageing PR and fashion disasters who treat sobriety and responsible parenting as concepts invented purely to annoy them. It's broad, silly, gloriously cruel, and built entirely on the pleasure of watching grown women behave monstrously and unrepentantly, at top volume, in outrageous outfits.

TVMaze rating

7.8

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The modern heir to Ab Fab's chaos - a woman making catastrophic decisions with terrifying wit, breaking the fourth wall, dragging her family down with her charm alone.

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Sex and the City1998

Four women, fashion, cocktails, terrible decisions in beautiful outfits - the glamorous excess and unshakeable friendship Ab Fab runs on, just with slightly better manners.

But More romantic and sentimental at heart; the show ultimately believes in love and growth, which Edina would find deeply suspect.

Girls2012

Self-absorbed young women behaving appallingly and calling it self-discovery - the same comic delight in bad behaviour, filtered through millennial narcissism instead of Cristal.

But More earnest and navel-gazing than farcical; the cringe is meant to sting rather than just delight.

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Something you would not have found on your own.

Grey Gardens1976

Same double act - flamboyant older woman, exasperated straighter one - and the same refusal to grow up, except here it's true and heartbreaking rather than played for laughs.

The real, sad ancestor of Edina and Patsy - two once-glamorous relatives of Jackie Onassis, living in a crumbling mansion, still performing grandeur for an audience of nobody. Astonishing and unforgettable.

But No jokes were written for you here; the laughs are uneasy and the decay and sadness on screen are entirely real.

Schitt's Creek2015

A once-glamorous family stripped of money and dignity but not their vanity, forced into ordinary life and still performing fabulousness at everyone else's expense.

But It's kinder and more redemptive - everyone actually grows, which is the opposite of Ab Fab's entire philosophy.

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Broad British slapstick, direct-to-camera silliness, a heroine gleefully making everything worse - pure farcical joy in the same tradition as Ab Fab's chaos.

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Absurdist showbiz satire with an ego as monstrous and fragile as Edina's, skewering the entertainment industry with the same anarchic, surreal energy.

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Jennifer Saunders pre-Edina, sketch by sketch, doing broad silly parody with Dawn French - the muscle Ab Fab was built from, on full display.

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Auntie Mame1958no page yet

The exact same shape - a scene-stealing, life-devouring woman dragging a sensible young relative through glamour and chaos - except here the film is entirely on her side.

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But Gentler and more sentimental in intent; the film wants you to admire Mame's freedom, not laugh at her fabulous disasters.

BoJack Horseman2014

Takes Ab Fab's comic engine - excess, vanity, an enabling friend, collateral family damage - and plays out the tragic version, with animation giving it license to go darker than any live sitcom could.

Same engine, entirely different costume - a self-destructive, vain, addicted celebrity wrecking everyone around him, except animated, achingly funny, and unflinching about where the excess actually leads.

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