Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie - review

Producers did not release the Ab Fab film to the critics ahead of its release yesterday, which is rarely a vote of confidence. Add to that the fact that it's a big-screen adaptation of a sitcom - a genre with a patchy track record, The Inbetweeners Movie notwithstanding - and that it uses the tired and tested plot device of plonking their characters somewhere foreign, and the signs are not encouraging. Yet despite such portents, Absolutely Fabulous is as much of a fun, raucous romp as fans would have hoped for - director Mandie Fletcher throwing proceedings into the preposterous story and high camp with as much vigour now as there was when the series started a rather incredible 24 years ago.

Video interview: Ab Fab director Mandie Fletcher

Funny Women founder Lynne Parker met comedy director Mandie Fletcher for a chat about Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, how to get into directing, handling cameo stars and their favourite funny woman...

Absolutely Fabulous: The movie - bolly good show!

The jokes spring out at you from our crumpled old friends, sharp and fresh and pleasingly tasteless.

Review - Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

BBC comedy makes a wobbly transfer to the big screen but its two delicious lead performances keep the comedy fizzing along.

Absolutely Fabulous - The Movie review

So, what could the sweetest end be to the shittiest of weeks? Watching two of our fabulous female greats reprising roles that define the essence of bonkers (and genius) British comedy - yes Patsy and Eddie, we've buggering well missed you sweeties, and thank Christ you're back/

Review: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

Fans are unlikely to be disappointed.

Ab Fab The Movie review: Patsy and Eddy turned up to 11 (Link expired)

Despite its flimsy plot, this remains worth seeing for the comic chemistry between Saunders and Lumley, which is as irresistible as it is hilarious.

Review - Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

In all, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is as hit and miss as the TV show was, once upon a time. Lumley shines, Saunders tries hard, but the thin story is against them from the start, as well as the feeling that we have seen all of this before.

'Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie': film review

An endearing shambles, much like the original show.

In and Out of the Kitchen (***), created and written by Miles Jupp, was first heard on Radio 4, a delightful spoof of celebrity chefs and our modern obsessions with food and having the perfect kitchen. Now Jupp and director Mandie Fletcher have brought it to television.

Jupp plays Damien Trench, a food writer obsessed with good nosh, who lives with his partner, Anthony (Justin Edwards), an ex-banker now looking for a job. They're chalk and cheese; Damien has a range of sharp shirts and woolly cardigans, while Anthony spends most of his time loafing around the house in his pants or pyjamas. For him food is merely a fuel, not something to be described in loving detail before every mouthful is savoured; last night Anthony was making a foul-smelling courgette soup as part of his fad diet.

The voiceover of the radio show is maintained here, with Damien doing straight-to-camera pieces as he describes a few days in what he thinks is a busy life but in fact is not; last night's biggest task was baking a simple birthday cake while avoiding his scary agent Iain (Philip Fox), who had the episode's best joke - a wonderful payoff to a running gag about "Salman Rushdie".

It's a life in which nothing ever quite works out to plan, except his delicious recipes, which are given in each programme. (Last night is was crab bisque and Victoria sponge.) The laconic Irish builder, Mr Mullaney (Brendan Dempsey), meanwhile, is working on a succession of jobs in the house with his young assistant Steven (Ade Oyefeso), while Damien's new magazine column for Waitsbury's lands him in legal difficulties. It's lo-fi comedy in which fart gags are set up but not delivered, as it were.

Part of the pleasure of listening to a radio show is in conjuring up the world described (including the never-ending building work and the awful restaurants Iain insists on taking Damien to); here we have it all done for us and I'm not sure it adds to the comedy, and it jars that Damien and Anthony's relationship seems rather tetchier here. But In and Out of the Kitchen is enjoyable enough - and the recipes are cracking.