Absolutely Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders says show would never be made today because of woke cancel culture
TELLY favourite Jennifer Saunders says she would not get away with making her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous in today’s woke era.
The comedy legend, 62, lashed out at the joyless “small-mindedness” which would face her TV classic.
Jennifer, 62, said: “What p****s me off? Quite a lot of stuff actually. I get p****d off by people and gentle criticism all the time.
"This is a modern thing, isn’t it? If someone says something it always has to be, ‘Oh, but sorry, you can’t say that’. I say, ‘Oh f*** off’.
“It’s not a crime to have an opinion or say something.
"It is always petty and small-mindedness that ps me off — bigotry and small-mindedness.”
Jennifer played boozy PR guru Edina Monsoon opposite Joanna Lumley’s fellow hellraiser Patsy Stone in BBC’s Ab Fab from 1994 to 2004.
The pair’s hilarious rants ensured it was a massive hit — but Jennifer says the inevitable complaints they would spark today would stop it being made.
She said of the modern culture: “I think it has changed comedy like what we used to make. I think we would probably talk ourselves out of most of it now. It would be like, ‘We won’t have a good answer so let’s not do that’.
“I think people do talk themselves out of stuff now because everything is sensitive.”
She went on: “It stops a lot of the fun, maybe, like jokes. I remember jokes. Silly jokes.”
Jennifer believes prejudice was worse when she started out on the comedy circuit with Dawn French in the 1980s. Jennifer recalls: “I do think people are more wary of what they say and do now, certainly.
“And probably some of it is not bad as when we started as alternative comedians.
“It was a sort of a reaction against the mainstream comedians who were considered sexist and racist.”
Jennifer’s comments come after a series of popular classic comedies have been slapped with “woke” discriminatory language warnings by the BBC.
They include family favourites Dad’s Army, Blackadder and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Fawlty Towers creator John Cleese also slammed the BBC for pulling the legendary Germans episode of the 1970s comedy.
Jennifer said comics who would now be under fire were trailblazers in their heyday.
Speaking at an event at the Garrick Theatre in central London this week, Jennifer recalled a live show with Dawn, now 63, who decided to confront sexist hecklers.
She recalled: “There were not many female acts then. One night it was a really lousy crowd. We went on and someone shouted, ‘Get your t out’.
“Dawn stopped and said, ‘Right. No. Stop it. Lights up. Who’s that? Now sit down and stop it’.
"And there was just silence and they stopped it and afterwards they came and apologised and it was the river police on a stag party. I felt very safe after that. Dawn does not take any nonsense.”
Jennifer also recalled a deeply unpleasant moment filming Ab Fab in Morocco.
She said: “I remember they did an episode in Marrakesh and Edina had to walk across the main square. And they made me do it.
“There were no cameras, no security, no nothing. I just set off in a sarong and a necklace which just said ‘S.E.X.’ I had to set off and I got spat at. Oh God yes. It was hideous.
“But I know what Edina would say, ‘You are never going to see any of these people again in your whole life’.”
Bolly good!
By Rod McPhee, TV Editor
ONLY someone as whip-smart as Jennifer Saunders could attack wokery in a way that was, well, absolutely fabulous.
It’s not just her unapologetic slamming of the oversensitive modern world which would, she says, never tolerate her outrageous comedy being made today.
It’s the fact Jennifer — aka Ab Fab’s Eddy Monsoon — had her career forged in the woke mothership of the BBC. Even she can’t stand the “petty” way snowflakes want to make the world less fun.
So let’s raise a glass of Bollinger to Patsy and Eddy, and to Jennifer we say: “Thank you, darling, sweetie, precious . . .”
Jennifer had major success alongside Dawn with the BBC’s French and Saunders.
But she says she is constantly fighting against bosses trying to shoehorn men into her shows.
She said: “I enjoy working with women. I really just love it. I get on very well with women and most women’s lives involve a lot of other women. I don’t think that is shown a lot.”
But she added: “If you don’t have men in a women’s show it’s like, ‘Um, could you have a man in it?’ You do get a bit of pressure.”
She sympathised with modern writers who face a nightmare battle to get shows on screen. Jennifer said: “When we got our first series, television was a place where you could grow. You did not have to come ready-made.”
She went on: “We had to work and you hope you just learn and got better.
You might forget that you may make something s but the next will be better. Now you have to promote yourself all the time.”
The star, married to Bottom actor Ade Edmondson, 64, revived Ab Fab for a 2016 movie, but another is “unlikely”.
She said: “We are old. I suppose it could but it would be a series more than a film.
“And French and Saunders the same. Dawn likes to write books and I like to do my garden. It’s hard to do those things as there is an expectation.
“The good thing about being young is that you can take the p*** out of things and people accept it. If you are old you are just a bitter old c***.”
Five moments you wouldn't get away with today
YOU SHOULD'VE ENDED UP IN BIN
PATSY rants to her nemesis Saffy: “You miserable piece of flesh. You should’ve ended up in the dustbin! The incinerator was too good for you! You know, when I heard that Eddie was pregnant, I told her to abort! ABORT, ABORT, ABORT! I said, ‘Chuck it down the pan!’ I said, ‘Bring me a knitting needle’.”
LET THEM DIE IF THEY'RE STUPID
ENDING up in court, Patsy and Eddie say the rest of the world should be punished — not them. Eddie says: “Why not just have a stupidity tax? Just tax the stupid people.” Patsy then roars at the judge: “And let them die!”
KISSING A GAY DWARF HUBBY
EDDIE says: “I had two husbands — one was too short, one was gay. Still, sweetie, if you want to know how to peck a dwarf on the cheek as he’s walking out of the house to the disco in your dress, then I’m your girl.”
MIXED-RACE TOT IS A MUST-HAVE
WHEN Saffy dates a black man, her mum Eddie says: “A mixed-race baby is the finest accessory a person in my position could ever have, sweetheart. Oh my God it’s the must-have of the season. It’s the Chanel of babies.”
READ MORE SUN STORIES
DON'T LET 'EM THINK YOU'RE FAT
WHEN Eddie’s daughter gets pregnant she tells her: “You should tell people as soon as you see them. You don’t want them thinking you’re fat.” And while discussing keeping in shape, she says: “I don’t want a great, big fat bum like J-Lo, do I, darling? How high have that woman’s heels got to keep that nancy off the pavement now?”
The Sun says
IT’S easy to laugh at the woke mob — but imagine the genuine comedy they would smother at birth if they got their way.
Jennifer Saunders reckons Ab Fab would never have got made if today’s leftie prudes and the cancel culture they champion were around 30 years ago.
Can anyone imagine the genius of Fawlty Towers seeing the light of day? Or Blackadder, Little Britain, the Inbetweeners or many more?
Comedy with no edge, or simply preaching predictable woke politics, isn’t funny even to sentient lefties.
But as long as feeble executives at TV networks or other corporations are terrified of a Twitterstorm, the woke puritans will win.
And comedy won’t be all we lose.