When the BBC launched Absolutely Fabulous — written by Saunders and starring her and Lumley as the drunken, promiscuous stars adrift in a caricature of "Swinging London" — each episode seemed funny, outrageous and brave. The casual flamboyance of the 1960s, and that decade’s influence on longer-term trends in society, music and style, were still largely unexamined and had taken on the features of a legendary era. Yet however right-on retro the show came across, it was launched in the 1990s.Now the movie moves with much the same cast into 2016, and the roughage (the middling script, the embarrassingly gay undertones, and even the idea that the Sixties simply boiled over with love and flowers) has not just become dated, but has taken on cruel, amoral themes that lurch into view as Edina (Saunders) and Patsy (Lumley) get old, out of phase, and (worst!) go broke thanks to their continual riot and trivial banter. Champagne, "boutique vodka", drug use that will make your hair stand on end...
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