English Entertainment
Star World lights up Saturday nights with an ‘Abolutely Fabulous’ comedy
MUMBAI: English general entertainment channel Star World continues to add new shows to its lineup. The latest one is a British comedy with plenty of satirical bite – Absolutely Fabulous. It airs every Saturday at 10 pm from 15 October, 2005.
The broadcaster states that the show’s USP is its uncensored bad behaviour and extremely satirical humor, The main protagonists of Absolutely Fabulous are Edina Monsoon and her friend Patsy – two hard-drinking, drug-taking, completely and outrageously selfish middle aged women.
Their cruel humour focusses on the hypocrisy of today’s society, much to the chagrin of Edina’s more moral and conservative daughter, Saffron.
In the first episode, neurotic PR bigwig Edina and Patsy, fashion editor of a glossy magazine, face a heavy day. Eddy is frantically preparing for her debut fashion show and trying to prove to her daughter, Saffron, that she can function without booze. Patsy, content for alcohol to remain a substitute to food, isn’t helping, and Eddy finds herself slowly drawn towards some wine.
The show stars Jennifer Saunders Shrek 2 as Eddy and Joanna Lumley Maybe Baby as Patsy.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
