Last time, we took a look at an early edit of the pilot for Absolutely Fabulous. Today, we’re going back even earlier: to the original script for the episode, containing scenes – and even characters – which never even made it into that initial version of the show.
This is much easier to do than you might think. I didn’t need to go searching in DISREPUTABLE PLACES which I shouldn’t be hanging around in. The original script for the pilot – alongside the scripts for the other five episodes of that first series – were published by BBC Books in 1993, just a year after the series aired. And thankfully, these really were the actual scripts used in production, rather than boring transcripts.
Let’s go.
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All times given are from the 1992 broadcast/DVD/iPlayer version of the show, and indicate where the script differs in a major way from the final episode. Minor differences in phrasing are not noted.
(0:22) It doesn’t take long to get to the good stuff. The opening scene of the episode, a dream sequence set in Edina’s office, was scripted, but cut entirely from the final show:
Dream sequence: loud rap music is playing. Edina is sitting at her desk. Also in the office are two clothes designers, looking at large drawings and photos of models. Other office staff are walking in and out carrying clothes on hangers, flower arrangements and bottles of wine. The effect is one of people being busy-busy, but nothing is really happening.
EDINA: (Drinking huge glass of water and eating a McDonald’s.) Everything is perfectly under control. It’s going to be the most fabulous fashion event ever. Celebrities from all over the world – Jerry, Marie, Paloma. All the top French and Italian models, ten Yasmin Le Bons. Every designer in the whole world. It’s going to be the most fabulous event ever.
Edina’s secretary, Bubble, enters.
BUBBLE: Everything is perfectly under control. We’ve moved Stonehenge to a tent in Hyde Park.
EDINA: Did you get permission for that, darling?
BUBBLE: They were very happy for us to use it, as long as it’s back for the summer solstice. They realise how important the fashion industry is to this country.
EDINA: Exactly.
BUBBLE: What are you going to wear to the party?
EDINA: I’m not wearing anything, Bubble. I’m completely naked, I don’t know why.There is little reaction from Bubble.
BUBBLE: I see.
EDINA: But I don’t want to wear anything that isn’t completely ‘happening’. What is ‘happening’ at street level?
BUBBLE: Shops and traffic.
EDINA: What are the kids into?
BUBBLE: This is what the kids are into. This is what’s ‘happening’.1She opens the door and a male model walks in wearing a completely unfashionable-looking Seventies outfit, followed by a female model in similar gear. Jonny enters. He is a male designer.
EDINA: Jonny! How’s it all going?
JONNY: Terrific. Everything is going absolutely perfectly.Edina looks down at her desk at copies of mags like ID, and compilations of photo stills, of people dressed in Seventies gear. The pace becomes more manic and the shots weirder.
EDINA: But I simply haven’t got anything Seventies!
This segues neatly into the next scene, another dream sequence – set this time in Edina’s bedroom – which also went unused:
Dream sequence: Edina is manically sorting through rows of clothes on hangers. She is close to hysteria. She is clutching some nail scissors and is close to tears. She begins hacking away at her clothes, cutting off collars, cutting into trousers. In a time-lapse sequence she is seen first chopping up, then crudely sewing up an outfit. Her daughter, Saffron, appears shaking her head disaprovingly.
SAFFRON: You stupid, sad, old cow.
EDINA: Oh shut up. I will look fabulous.The camera cuts to Edina in front of her mirror. She is wearing the dreadful botched outfit, and is a pathetic sight.
EDINA: I can’t go to the party. I’ll have to kill myself.
She raises the scissors as if to stab herself.
SAFFRON: You’ll never get through all that flesh with those. (Hands her a butcher’s knife.)
Some of you may recognise the above two scenes, despite them not making it into the final show. I was racking my brain for a while, as I was sure I knew the Stonehenge material from somewhere. Was it reused in a later episode?
In fact, no. The above two scenes can be seen in their entirety on Absolutely Not, a 1997 BBC Video release featuring outtakes and cut material, much in the vein of the previous year’s Bottom Fluff. This material was then cannibalised for the later DVD releases, destroying much of the intended structure of the piece as it was chopped into series-by-series bites.2
Note in particular how finished they look and sound, audience laughter and all. I’m unconvinced they’d bother to do much with them for Absolutely Not, so I would suggest they were essentially completed before it was decided not to use them:
Bizarrely, Absolutely Not doesn’t mention that these two scenes are the cut opening to the very first episode, which would seem to be a fairly important detail to include. I don’t think you need to be the biggest comedy nerd in the world to find that information useful. You have to combine Absolutely Not with reading the script book in order to figure it all out properly. And so it’s now obvious that when Edina wakes up at the start of the pilot episode as broadcast, she’s waking up from a nightmare.
Regardless of whether the sequence was deleted for reasons of time or quality, I would argue it was a good cut in any case. Of course, part of the joy of Absolutely Fabulous is its endless use of dream sequences, flashbacks, and so on. But firstly, I’m unconvinced that it’s an ideal way to introduce people to your sitcom, and secondly, the pilot already has the big flashback scene later in the episode. Overloading the pilot with such devices was probably not a good idea.
(1:24) There are no significant changes to the next scene, in Edina’s bedroom. But the following scene in Edina’s bathroom is entirely cut:
Edina has her head down and is shaking out her hair. Eventually she looks up into the mirror, pulling her best face. She pulls off the sunglasses and her disappointment is obvious.
EDINA: Old, old, old. (She inspects her face closely and tries pulling it into different positions.) Joan Collins… Kim Basinger… Ivana Trump… (She lets her face drop.) Barbara Bush.
Rude!
Next up is the scene in Edina’s kitchen. This scene is scripted pretty much as broadcast, with no major changes in dialogue. Most of the differences come in actions; the stage directions indicate that “Edina removes her tinted contact lenses, and it is obvious she cannot see a thing” – an action which is easy to write, but a lot more difficult to perform and correctly register on-screen.
On a similar note, the directions also indicate that Edina should do “manic deep-breathing while slapping ice-cubes on her face”.
(6:26) One of the funniest things in the kitchen scene as broadcast is Edina’s mock “Have I?” when Saffy points out that she’s had six months to prepare the fashion show. This moment isn’t in the script at all!
(13:24) Once in the car on the way to the office – via Harvey Nicks, of course – there’s a short joke rewrite. After Edina suggests she will simply drink water to Patsy, the script says the following:
EDINA: It’s a mixer, Patsy. We have it with whisky.
PATSY: I just can’t imagine it.
Instead, the broadcast version goes for:
EDINA: It’s a mixer, Patsy. We have it with whisky. You know what it’s like, you’ve given up drinking before.
PATSY: Worst eight hours of my life.
(13:46) In the same car scene, there’s a very funny deleted line from Patsy:
PATSY: I tried not drinking once. I heard myself talking all night and then, worse than that, next day I had total recall. It was terrifying.
Directly following this, the script includes the deleted exchange which made it into the initial edit of the pilot, as detailed the previous article.
(13:55) After Patsy suggests going to Harvey Nichols, the following was deleted:
EDINA: Patsy! Look at me. I’m rushing.
PATSY: It’s just I want to change these earrings. (Shows the ones she is wearing) They’re not broken… I’ve just gone off them.
EDINA: I haven’t seen those before!
PATSY: (Pointing to Edina’s jacket) I haven’t seen this before.
(15:26) Near the end of the scene, the following is scripted:
PATSY: We’ll also go to Joe’s cafe on the way back… You need a pasta. Then we’re going shopping. I’ve seen things for you. Look, there’s Yamishi’s new shop. Did you see it? Gorgeous window. Huge swathe of white chiffon over a terracotta pot.
EDINA: What does he sell?
PATSY: (Thinks.) White chiffon? Or maybe terracotta pots. Or both.
EDINA: I thought it was clothes.
PATSY: You can get white t-shirts.
This is severely reduced in the broadcast version, said out-of-vision over an external shot of the car:
PATSY: We’re going to San Fred’s for lunch, and then we’re going shopping.
Joe’s Cafe in the original script refers to the restaurant at Joseph’s, a designer clothing store on Sloane Street. San Fred’s refers to San Frediano, an Italian restaurant in Fulham Road.
Oh, and if you recognise the dialogue about “Yamishi’s new shop”, there’s a reason for that. This was reshot in the kitchen, and used over the end credits of the episode “Iso Tank”. Sometimes it’s difficult for a different episode in the same series to reuse cut material – a production rarely knows in time that it was actually cut. In this case however, as the pilot was shot seven months before the rest of the series, it was obvious that they could reuse it.
(16:28) A huge section deleted from the beginning of the scene in Edina’s office, cutting out the major appearance of Nickolas Grace as Jonny:
EDINA: Lights… music… stage… press… tickets… models… designers?
BUBBLE: All in place.
EDINA: Clothes?The young male designer, Jonny, bursts furiously in, followed by a model wearing one of his creations, which is basically chain-mail. He is clutching other outfits.
JONNY: Hack off my tits… I’m having a nervous breakdown. I am a sinew on a stick. I am a nerve end about to ping into insanity.
EDINA: Jonny, darling.
JONNY: (In tears.) I have been exposed to the hideous face-lifts on the shoulder pads. Those bitch-buyers from Bloomingdales have told me my creations aren’t wearable. Unwearable? (Indicates model.) I am an artiste. These are my canvasses. I’m not some blind tart seamstress huddled over her fabric in the Bois de Boulogne. These are to be worshipped. Did they ask Da Vinci for washing instructions? Picasso for zips? I’m going to do what every good Buddhist should do. I’m going to set myself alight.
EDINA: You’re a genius, don’t be crazy. You’re an artiste, a creator, an innovator. Your clothes are fabulous. (Jonny, flattered, has now completely recovered.) You just put in some zips on the left-hand side and a little tag with washing instructions.
JONNY: Oh, all right. (They kiss.) You’re so good for me. (He turns to leave and is confronted by Patsy, who is standing holding a lighted match, challenging his Buddhist conviction.)
This deleted section can be also seen in Absolutely Not, very close to the scripted version, although it adds a tagline for Jonny:
Amusingly enough, as the broadcast edit continues with Edina’s “Right. Now, Bubble, did all the models turn up?”, you can still see Jonny stalking away in the background!
There’s nothing wrong with the above material per se, and Jonny is a perfectly valid character. The problem is, this is Jennifer Saunders’ show, and it just feels a little odd to have Nickolas burst in and take it away from her, even if it’s just for a minute.3
Incidentally, Jonny’s model is played by Phina Oruche, in an extremely early role for her. And she’s very funny too, doing a lot of amusing eye-rolling in lieu of being given any dialogue. The “numbers chainmail” section of the dress she is wearing is reused as part of Saffy’s outfit on TVam in “Magazine”:
Pilot deleted scene
Magazine
Never let anything go to waste.
(17:08) The following is a tiny change… and also the biggest change in the world. Let me explain. As scripted, there’s the following exchange between Edina and Bubble:
BUBBLE: Still, I phoned around and I think I may have found a replacement.
EDINA: Who?
BUBBLE: Betty Boo! (Edina reacts with horror) Some of the designers aren’t happy, but I said you’d speak to them.
EDINA: Shit! This is all your fault, Patsy.
The broadcast version is, on the face of it, very similar:
BUBBLE: I’ve phoned round, and I think I’ve found a replacement.
EDINA: Good. Who, who?
BUBBLE: Betty Boo.
EDINA: Shit.
BUBBLE: Some of the designers aren’t happy, but I said you’d speak to them.
EDINA: This is all your fault, Patsy.
The change is simply moving Edina saying “Shit!” to directly after Bubble’s revelation, and it’s one of the funniest things in the scene, purely because Jennifer times the line perfectly, barking it out immediately before you even know it’s happening. This is exactly the kind of thing you figure out during rehearsals.
(18:43) Brace yourself, everyone. Jonny’s big scene above may have been deleted, but – spoiler – at least he gets a few lines later. But here, we have what is essentially a completely cut character, in the form of Lou-Lou, Bubbles’ assistant.
As scripted:
EDINA: Don’t be silly, Pats, this is the bit I enjoy. Bubble, who’s helping you today? I told you to get an assistant.
BUBBLE: Yes, I have. She’s a friend of mine. She knows a lot about the fashion biz. Very experienced. (She calls.) Lou-Lou!
EDINA: PR? PA?Lou-Lou appears at the door, but can’t get it open.
BUBBLE: No, ex-model.
Lou-Lou is still trying to get the door open.
PATSY: Reinforcing my prejudice with every pathetic attempt.
BUBBLE: Push! What’s push in French? Pousse, poussin.Lou-Lou gets in and walks languidly to Bubble.
BUBBLE: Did you find the toilet, this time?
LOU-LOU: (Shakes her head slowly and talks with a French accent.) I don’t know.
The broadcast version of the scene then carries on with Patsy’s “Right, I’m off. Are we eating?” Once you know something was cut here, the edit around this point becomes fairly obvious.
Lou-Lou was played by Lucy Blair – Lionel Blair’s daughter. As every single one of her lines were cut, she goes uncredited in the final episode.4 And although she doesn’t appear in the scene as broadcast, she does appear in one of the Radio Times publicity photos, standing to the right.5
No wonder this character was cut – it feels to me to be an error to even include Lou-Lou in the script at all. You already have the joke of Bubble being the ditzy assistant – the first episode is far too early to iterate on that joke. All it would do is confuse things.
Notably, Lou-Lou does not reappear anywhere in Series 1 – not even with a recast.
(19:32) Another extra joke added to the final version. The script goes:
EDINA: Who were you with last night, anyway?
PATSY: Oh, he was just a windscreen washer I picked up at some traffic lights. Bum’s so tight he was bouncing off the walls.
As broadcast:
EDINA: Anyway, darling, who was it you were with last night?
PATSY: Oh, he was just a windscreen washer I picked up at the traffic lights. Buns so tight he was bouncing off the walls.
EDINA: Bye Pats.
Much like the Betty Boo example previously, the addition of Saunders’ ultra-quick “Bye Pats” is what really makes the exchange funny.
(20:00) Now, here’s a bit of an odd one. As Patsy leaves the room, we’re supposed to get one final line from Lou-Lou – a callback to her problems with the door:
LOU-LOU: (As Patsy moves to the door.) Push.
This isn’t in the final episode – and there’s no obvious edit where it could have been, either. For that matter, it’s at this point you realise that Lou-Lou hasn’t been anywhere in the final scene as broadcast. You do have to wonder whether the team were already having second thoughts about the character, and staged this scene so she could easily be removed.
However, it’s also possible the line was cut even before the recording. If you think through the joke, Lou-Lou is actually wrong here – now she’s on the other side of the door, Patsy needs to pull it. Would this piece of logic really register much with the audience? There surely isn’t really time for them to think it through properly.
(20:16) This is the montage where Edina organises the fashion show. The final episode is slightly rearranged when compared to the script, with a few dialogue changes, but that’s not the really important thing about this scene.
Instead, I want to focus on the following stage direction:
Lou-Lou is asleep on the couch.
And sure enough, there she is in the final episode, albeit reading a magazine rather than sleeping:
Is it odd that you don’t really notice this in the final episode? Perhaps. I think the show gets away with it for two reasons. Firstly, she’s not only at the side of the picture, but she’s kinda in the dark. Secondly, she’s easily hand-waved away as just a model hanging around the office.
(21:21) None of the dialogue in the corridor of the fashion show is scripted; there’s only a general stage directions about Edina hugging Jonny, etc.
As Jonny was cut from both the opening dream sequence and the scene in Edina’s office, this is the only scene which really features the character properly in the final episode. Regardless of Nickolas Grace’s fun performance, it’s difficult not to feel that they did the right thing.
(22:28) In the green room at the fashion show, there’s a section at the end in the final episode which isn’t in the script at all:
EDINA: People weren’t even looking at what was happening on the catwalk.
PATSY: Good job really, darling. I mean, Betty Boo and Dannii Minogue did their best, but frankly…
EDINA: Cheers, anyway. Cheers, cheers, cheers.Edina notices the two young men sat on the sofa.
EDINA: Pats.
PATSY: Darling?
EDINA: Are we keeping these two?
PATSY: No, I thought we’d get a couple of different ones at the party.
(23:04) When Edina and Patsy return to the office, steaming drunk, there’s the following immortal line added to the final episode which isn’t in the script:
EDINA: If I squat down, I’ll piss myself.
BAFTA-award-winning dialogue.
(24:51) The following is in the script, but cut for broadcast:
EDINA: I think there may be some tea here, but no milk.
PATSY: I’ll go and get some milk. (Gets up.)
EDINA: No, don’t. I don’t really want tea. Where would you get milk from? What places sell milk?
PATSY: Delicatessens.
EDINA: Oh! No. Don’t bother. I don’t want delicatessen milk.
This was presumably cut during rehearsals, as there’s no way it could be edited out: it’s all one shot.
(25:03) The transition into the flashback, as scripted, is simply Edina talking drunkenly to Patsy:
EDINA: We got away with it then. My stupid bloody mother never noticed. My stupid bloody daughter won’t…
In the final episode, they add Saunders doing a voiceover, to make the transition into the flashback clearer:
EDINA: (VO) Mother never knew, did she Pats? You remember?
A wise move; you really need to signal the flashback as clearly as possible.
(25:05) As for the flashback itself, the script specifically states the flashback year as 1968 in the stage directions. This isn’t directly stated anywhere in the final episode.
There’s one other interesting change to this section: the stage direction simply states that Edina is “staggering up a garden path in suburbia”. In the final episode Edina falls out of the car, directly mirroring what happens in the next scene, when Edina arrives back at her house in the present day.
This is perhaps a more complex change than it first appears. In many ways, you want Edina’s fall out of the car to only really happen in the present-day, because that’s essentially where the money is: to get a preview of it risks ruining the impact of the joke. But structurally, to link the two scenes together across the years, it was probably worth doing. Jennifer Saunders’ fall in the present-day sequence is funnier anyway.6
* * *
And that’s pretty much your lot. But if you’ve managed to get this far, I’m sure one little final piece of information will interest you. Exactly which scenes in this episode were shot on the pre-record day on the 27th June 1991, and which were recorded the following evening on the 28th June, in front of the audience?
The following scenes were pre-recorded:
- The deleted opening dream sequence in the office.
- All scenes in Edina’s bedroom: the dream sequence, the real opening sequence in reality, and the one over the closing credits.
- The deleted scene in Edina’s bathroom.
- The office montage scene.
- Both fashion show sequences, in the corridor and the green room.
The studio audience night essentially consisted of the long kitchen sequence at the start of the episode, the hallway scene, the office scenes before and after the fashion show, and the very final scene in the kitchen.7
I have to say, I’d swap my experience watching Pointless recorded for that one, please.
With thanks to Tanya Jones for editorial advice, and Milly Storrington for archive research.
Note the stark similarity here with Nozin’ Aroun’ in The Young Ones. Not just the use of “the kids”, but even including the phrase “street level”. This is almost certainly unconscious, but it’s worth pointing out that in Jennifer Saunders’ autobiography, Bonkers: My Life in Laughs (Viking, 2013), she specifically mentions Ben Elton is an influence in her writing:
“The other person, apart from Ruby [Wax], whom I credit with teaching me how to write a script is Ben Elton. Ruby taught me how to build a gag, how to keep it going until the line was an extreme, to never be satisfied with ‘quite funny’. Ben taught me that there is never a situation where a joke cannot be had: if you’re in a restaurant, don’t just write the dialogue, write all the jokes about restaurants as well. Never miss an opportunity. If you’re in a shop, write all the shop jokes you can think of. Jokes, jokes, jokes. They can be subtle, but never miss the chance to shove ’em in.”
Now that’s my kind of comedy philosophy. As many jokes as possible. ↩
It perhaps would have been nice for the Absolutely Everything boxset to have shoved the entire feature in full on one of the discs, rather than including the siloed-by-series extras. ↩
A similar problem would have occured if they’d ever cast Rik Mayall in the series. I think it’s notable that they found a character for Ade but not for Rik, and I don’t think the reason is that Jennifer married him. ↩
I’m not the first person to reveal the actresses’ name, though – Lucy is still credited as Lou-Lou elsewhere online, including on the archived Beeb Absolutely Fabulous website. ↩
Oddly enough, this photograph is flipped – just compare the items on the desk in the scene as broadcast. ↩
In the scene outside Edina’s house, the script also doesn’t directly state that Saffy closes the door and leaves Edina out in the cold, although it’s clearly implied. The final episode makes sure to include a shot of Saffy banging the door shut. ↩
Notably, the flashback sequence was entirely shot on location and then played in for the audience; even the section inside the house. ↩
2 comments
Russ J Graham on 11 June 2025 @ 9pm
The flipping of photographs was common – nay, entirely normal – well into the late 1990s and early 2000s. It still being flipped in the Getty archive (via Hutton, whose archive was merged with the RT’s before the merger with Getty, which has produced an attribution problem that is still unresolved) shows how feeders like the RT would happily submit flipped photos without comment to the major agencies.
It was the Grauniad that started a campaign against this, via their first Readers’ Editor, Ian Mayes, who hated the practice and clamped down on it. One of the major reasons, still taught when I was studying journalism in 1993-ish, was that people in photos should always face the centre of the publication for reasons nobody could explain. If the photo didn’t fit that, flip it, even though that was messing with reality and history.
Still happens now, of course, but with less dogmatic frequency. And it still jars when you see it and, for me, undermines trust in every other photo in the guilty publication.
SM on 12 June 2025 @ 12am
The comment about the Radio Times archive on Getty is incorrect. The RT uploads on Getty are from a more recent digitisation partnership, which involved a lot of batch processing. As a result, some flipped images slipped through – not done intentionally but through straightforward lapses.