Old-age: Absolutely Fabulous ‘The End’

Absolutely Fabulous ‘The End’

At the time, the third season of Absolutely Fabulous was intended to be the last and ended with a glimpse of Eddy Monsoon and Patsy Stone twenty-five years on in an episode appropriately, albeit prematurely, entitled ‘The End’: the pair had aged but not changed.

Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) was a genuinely funny and grotesque creation and the early seasons of Absolutely Fabulous had their moments. Unfortunately, Jennifer Saunders and the BBC decided to keep flogging a terminally-ill horse and produced another two seasons (plus some one-off specials) of increasingly unfunny episodes.

Along the way the BBC contract with Jennifer Saunders also generated the pathetic Mirrorball – ‘maybe we could do something else with the same cast and similar characters’ – and the spectacularly unfunny Let Them Eat Cake.

Patsy and Eddy are also seen aged in the fourth season episode ‘Menopause’ when Saffy starts day-dreaming about the future: as this is Saffy’s nightmarish fantasy the makeup is heavier than here and deliberately caricatured.

The makeup

Jan Sewell was the makeup & hair designer but Sherman Labs were responsible for creating the old-age makeups in both this and the later episode.

FangsFX provided the prosthetic dentures.