Absolutely Fabulous: White Box

During the many seasons of Absolutely Fabulous, its protagonists, Edina 'Eddy' Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) have managed to happily wallow in all of the 7 deadly sins-lust, greed, pride, envy etc - and have even created a few of their own along the way, to the delight of the audience.Absolutely Fabulous - White Box., a one off episode that originally aired as a BBC Christmas special in 2004, is essentially more of the same, and fans of these two self absorbed, pill popping messes (count me in!) will be overjoyed.

The basic plotline, which is really just a way to display the women's utter narcissism and excess - and written by Saunders, as always- finds put upon, newly married daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha) returning from Africa, while Eddy sets out to redesign her kitchen with the help of old friends, the pretentious Bettina and Max (Miranda Richardson and Patrick Barber). Others joining in the fray include a very hammy Nathan Lane as an obnoxious designer, Roseanne's Laurie Metcalf doing a fun turn as a psychic and even legendary British home design guru Terence Conran pops in for a bit.

White Box comes across like any other episode of AbFab - comic genius, though there isn't too much here that sets it apart from any of the other hilarious go rounds. As usual, Jane Horrocks as daft and ditzy Bubbles is a scream, and Eddy and Patsy are their usual obnoxious, abusive, and utterly enjoyable selves. The extras aren't anything to get excited about; How to be Absolutely Fabulous and Absolutely Fabulous- a Life have been seen before, though Modern Mother & Daughter, the original French and Saunders skit that inspired AbFab, is fascinating and quite funny. Right, cheers sweetie, thanks a lot!