In praise of comedy genius

I'll admit it, for years I thought there were no female comedy geniuses. Yes, Gilda Radner was funny and so was Jane Curtain but they weren't geniuses in my opinion. But like they say, wisdom, and more intelligence comes with age, and I can now see that there are many female comedy geniuses. And the one I'm singling out for praise in this post is Jennifer Saunders.Most Americans became familiar with Ms. Saunders work through the reruns of her first big hit Absolutely Fabulous. But she actually came to prominence first through the seminal comedy series The Young Ones. As I've written before The Young Ones was not a particularly great show, nor was it even particularly good, but what it was was a huge launching pad for actors and writers that are still around and doing great work today, people such as Robbie Coltrane, Dawn French, Ben Elton, Lenny Henry, and Jennifer Saunders, among many others. Jennifer was on a couple of episodes of The Young Ones, she was most notably in the episode where Rick gives a party and he takes a tampon out of her purse and tries smoke it because he thinks it's a joint. Trust me, if you haven't seen it, it's one of the highlights of the series. So a generation of kids who were lucky enough to watch MTV back when it didn't suck got to see Ms. Saunders first American TV appearance. Saunders would go on to marry and have a few children with one of the stars of The Young Ones, Adrian Edmonson.

She also appeared in and co wrote a series in the mid '80's called Girls on Top. It also starred and was co written by the woman who would become her comedy partner Dawn French. Tracy Ullman was in it as well, as was Ruby Wax, who incidentally is the female equivalent to nails running down a chalk board to me. This show had its brief moments and once again French and Saunders were the best things about it. I saw all the episodes of it a few years back and I'm still trying to forget how bad Ruby Wax was in this show. It's not a series you need to seek out but if you like the odd and perverse, then by all means go for it.

Saunders finally her her big break through with Absolutely Fabulous in 1992. And it's in this series that her genius starts to shine. I used to think it was a little over the top for me but upon many re-watchings of it, it's actually quite good. Yes, Saunders gave herself and Joanna Lumley most of the best lines and the funniest bits, after all she did write it as a vehicle for herself so it's to be expected, but she also gave her other co-stars enough material for them to shine brightly along with her. Jane Horrocks as Bubble her personal assistant and June Whitfield as her addled mother really stand out. And if you watch the series closely you'll see that most of the co-stars jokes come at the expense of Ms. Saunders character, which is nice considering she could have let her ego run wild and not let them make jokes that make her look bad. If you've ever worked onstage with someone who refuses to make a self deprecating joke about them self, then you'll appreciate what Ms. Saunders did all the more.

During the Ab Fab years and beyond them as well, Saunders and Dawn French made many a comedy special for BBC TV and they're available in this country on DVD. Most of them are hit and miss, mostly miss in my opinion because they're more than a bit self indulgent. I've seen them all and this one is by far the best of the lot:

Lately she's been in the Shrek movies and she's done a couple of new series. One of them is airing on either Sundance or IFC now and it's called The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle. It's pretty much, meh, nothing special, but her other series is a comic gem of a show about life in rural England. It's called Clatterford, and before any of you leave me a comment telling me I'm wrong about the title, I know it's known as Jam and Jerusalem over in the UK. We saw it and fell in love with it on BBC America and I bought the first series DVD for Sparky this past Christmas. It's a slice of life comedy about the folks who live in a small town, I know it doesn't sound like much but there is a whole lot going on that makes this show worthwhile and worth watching. What's especially good about it is that even though she wrote it, Saunders is a minor character in it. And the character she plays is one that mocks her public 'Jennifer Saunders rich actress/TV personality' image. This series also does something that you will never ever see an American TV comedy show do, it features female characters who are well into their middle age years. And it not only features them, it celebrates them.

And that once again shows the genius of Jennifer Saunders. She is using her position as a woman who 'made it' in the male dominated world of comedy to help out other women who might be considered too old for other shows. That's her being generous again. She could stop working and rest on her laurels but oh no, she's still writing, still acting, still making folks laugh, and still helping other women in the comedy world.

I'm not crazy about everything she's done but I am crazy about her as a comedy writer and a comic actor. She's had her hits, and her misses, but by and large, Jennifer Saunders is a comedy genius.