Trouble ahead

Must we? All of us? This is the perfect storm, the tempest, the ultimate crisis for non-sport fans. But TV, with all its kaleidoscopic variety, was invented for just such an eventuality, surely? And together with some assistance from our faithful old friends, the tinnies in the fridge, the next few weeks might pass quite pleasantly, no? Fssssst. Sip. Hmmm. See? Happily, in terms of drinking and smoking, Patsy and Edina in Absolutely Fabulous (BBC1, Monday) seemed to be in agreement about what we in the East End refer to as ‘The Limpics’.

For those of us who have only ever seen this series intermittently, two things remain constant: any gags that involve famous people and fashion are thunderously unfunny (that is particularly true in this Limpic special, where Stella McCartney and Kelly Holmes are there for Jennifer Saunders’s Edina to fall over in front of). But the core relationship between Saunders and Joanna Lumley is ever more a work of hooting comic brilliance. Jonathan Swift would have loved the scene involving the pair of them trying to titivate themselves in Edina’s bedroom with giant magnifying glasses and mirrors and Venetian masque lipstick-shapers. ‘Is this a pore? Or a nostril?’ cries Edina. Later, Lumley’s Patsy is nearly suffocated by an absurdly restrictive control body. ‘I can’t feel her pulse!’ wails Edina’s daughter Saffy. Edina shudders at the vulgar solecism. ‘Oh, darling,’ she chides, ‘Pats doesn’t have a pulse.’ There have been suggestions elsewhere that this was the final episode. Surely not? Most sitcoms revolve around characters who cannot escape from one another, from Steptoe onwards. Yet Saunders has crafted a comedy about two lifelong friends who, increasingly adrift from the world, would never dream of parting.