"If all that vodka and champagne they’ve necked over the years hasn’t done the job, then why on earth would their creator be able to do it?" Joanna Lumley has revealed Jennifer Saunders once tried to kill off their Absolutely Fabulous characters, before she managed to convince her otherwise. The two comic actors starred as the leads in the ‘90s sitcom on the BBC , with Lumley playing Patsy Stone alongside Saunders’ Edina Monsoon. The show, which was created and written by Saunders, ran for five seasons from 1992 to 2003, before returning in 2004 for a Christmas special, a three-part series in 2012 and a feature film in 2016 .
The show revolves around Edina, a heavy-drinking PR mogul who is desperate to stay young and on top of fashion trends, and her best friend and fashion director Patsy, whose excesses eclipse Edina’s. Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders at the ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’ Australian premiere on July 31, 2016. (Photo by Don Arnold/WireImage) In a new interview with My Weekly , Lumley, 78, has disclosed details about a conversation she had with Saunders in which they discussed bringing about the demise of the characters.
Lumley said that Saunders wrote to her, asking: “Shall we just kill them off and bury them?” She continued: “I wrote back the fastest email return I’ve ever written. I said, ‘No, we’ve promised the world we will never die! And to be honest, if all that vodka and champagne they’ve necked over the years hasn’t.
