Lulu’s twang shines in Ab Drab movie

Absolutely Fabulous is back and the first instinct is to open the Bolly and shriek ‘sweetie, you haven’t changed a jot’.

After all, edina is still stuffing herself into fashions that are too young and too tight for her – nowadays it’s Westwood instead of the Lacroix – and saffy is still glowering from deep within her shetland jumpers.

If anything Patsy has become even more frozen in time, thanks to the botox she jabs into her face in one of the new film’s opening scenes, with the nonchalance of patting on concealer.

But watching Absolutely Fabulous the Movie with a crowd of gallus Glaswegians at the weekend suggested that time has not been kind to Jennifer saunders’ grown-up cartoon about trashy, self-centred fashionistas. everyone had come to the cinema determined to have a good time. someone had even smuggled in a bottle of Prosecco, which gave out the kind of pop and fizz we had hoped to see on screen.

Less a feature film, more one of those cobbledtogether specials that turn up on Comic Relief, there were tired jokes, and a can’t-be-bothered plot about the French Riviera which borrowed heavily from some Like It Hot.

Jokes about selfies and an endless conga of celebrity cameos couldn’t stifle the feeling that all this was about as hip and relevant as the Antiques Roadshow.

But respect to Lulu, left, for cracking open a Glaswegian accent way more believable than the one she uses when she comes here on state visits – and of course to Joanna Lumley, whose leering lemon-sucking Patsy remains a tottering triumph.