Jennifer Saunders is funniest when she lets a woman be selfish, exhausting and quite certain she is right. We rate her most highly when the writing gives that behaviour room, as Absolutely Fabulous does.
Fi1m perspective
In Absolutely Fabulous (1992), Edina Monsoon cannot see why anybody should object to her, and Jennifer Saunders lets that conviction make her thoroughly irritating. She writes and plays a woman who needs enough force of her own to stand beside Joanna Lumley's Patsy Stone, rather than wait for the next insult. We laughed at Edina's indignant self-absorption because Saunders makes no attempt to excuse it or ask for our affection. The series remains the strongest reason to seek her out, though its celebrity guests sometimes interrupt the comedy and the writing can mistake an exaggerated reaction for a fresh joke.
Before Edina came French and Saunders (1987), the sketch series with Dawn French; the character grew out of an earlier sketch. It matters that Saunders is also the writer: the sitcom does not keep interrupting its women's bad behaviour to arrange their improvement. With Lumley, she makes their mutual unpleasantness enjoyable and leaves us to decide how much sympathy either deserves. Later work widened the kinds of parts she took, from the Fairy Godmother's voice in Shrek 2 (2004) to the dramatic television role of Heidi Doyle in The Stranger (2020).
Allelujah (2023) gives us a smaller, more controlled piece of acting. As Sister Gilpin, who runs the hospital ward in Richard Eyre's film, Saunders holds a tightness around the mouth that is easy to overlook. David Bradley and Bally Gill give the performances we most admired, and the film's mishandled change of direction defeats much of the cast's good work. Saunders nevertheless shows how little movement she needs to make an impression.
Her Grandma in The Magic Faraway Tree (2026) is a more familiar booking: a supporting appearance in a bright, kind family film that gives adults some comic company. Saunders does the job, but there is little here to rival the difficult, sustained work of making Edina bearable for half an hour. The film's determination to keep everybody comfortable also leaves it short of anything much to worry about. For the fuller measure of Saunders, start with Absolutely Fabulous and allow for the celebrity visitors; the regular cast is reason enough to stay.
Biography
Jennifer Saunders is an English actress, comedian and screenwriter. Born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and first gained attention in the 1980s as a member of The Comic Strip, later forming a long-running partnership with Dawn French.
She is best known for co-writing and starring in the sketch show French and Saunders and for creating and playing Edina Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Her film and television credits include voice roles in Shrek 2 (2004) and Minions (2015), a guest appearance in Friends (1994), and live-action parts in Death on the Nile (2022) and Allelujah (2023) as Sister Gilpin. She is set to appear as Grandma in The Magic Faraway Tree (2026).
