AB FAB TO RETURN

Gay favourite comedy Absolutely Fabulous will return this year, one of the show’s stars, Joanna Lumley, has confirmed.

Lumley, who plays the role of Patsy, told Hello Magazine that the show’s creator and co-star Jennifer Saunders is working on scripts for at least three new episodes.

“In late August I start filming on three episodes of Absolutely Fabulous, which we are all ecstatic about,” Lumley said.

This will be the first new Absolutely Fabulous material in six years. In November last year, Lumley told the Daily Mail that she had begun discussions with Saunders.

“The great thing is that because … we fast-forwarded to where they’re very old and nearly dead and practically plugged into vodka machines, it doesn’t matter how beyond [the original series] we do it,” Lumley said at the time.

Saunders, who recently battled breast cancer, has also been working on the script for Spice Girls: The Musical.

The BBC has confirmed that the contract to bring back Absolutely Fabulous is in the final stages.

The show was originally broadcast between 1992 and 1996, returned between 2001 to 2004 for two more series and two specials, and was followed by a Comic Relief sketch in 2005.

A reportedly awful pilot for an American version of Absolutely Fabulous was shot in 2009 but the Fox television network decided not to go ahead with the series.

According to the British Film Institute, Absolutely Fabulous is ranked as the 17th greatest British TV Show of all time.