Book summary “Bonkers”: summary

Introduction

You often wonder how lasting comedic partnerships survive the pressures of television and personal upheaval. You want to understand how a childhood free of pomposity and a deep aversion to taking yourself too seriously can transform into a celebrated creative career. Memory proves unpredictable, yet certain formative moments stubbornly remain to shape your entire outlook on humor and work.

True comedic partnership and creative freedom emerge from a foundation of mutual play, an aversion to pomposity, and the resilience to weather professional chaos and personal illness.

You will trace this journey from early domestic eccentricities through pioneering alternative comedy circuits, iconic television collaborations, and the quiet spaces of rural life. This path reveals how to balance intense public demands with private family foundations.

You will discover answers to several key questions as you read:

• How does early childhood play shape adult creativity?
• What mechanisms keep collaborative partnerships fresh across decades?
• How do you write enduring characters born from chaos?
• What does it take to maintain humor when facing severe medical challenges?

1. Early Life and Comedy Influences

A childhood defined by frequent moves, a menagerie of animals, and a family rule against taking oneself too seriously builds the ideal psychological soil for humor.

The Golden Rule

You learn early that pomposity is the ultimate domestic sin. Your father establishes a clear rule that nearly anything can be tolerated except taking yourself too seriously.

Her father flew his plane upside down under telegraph wires to impress her mother, and later played up the character of Commander Cox to amuse his family. He was born in the year 1926 and was later awarded a CBE in 1969.

Childhood Relocations

Frequent relocations force you to develop defensive social blending rather than acting as a class clown. You master the art of quickly sizing up a room and prioritizing immediate home life over attachment to transient locations.

By age thirteen, Saunders had attended seven different schools, cycling through a pattern of trying to blend in with whichever social group offered stability across seven moves in the first thirteen years of life.

Physical Comedy Roots

Early physical mishaps connect directly to your later appreciation of broad physical comedy. You recognize how ridiculous movement trumps sentimental comedy.

She cites performers like Mr Pastry, Lucille Ball, and Laurel and Hardy as key influences who embraced ridiculous physical movement over sentimental comedy.

Growing up surrounded by a wide variety of animals instills practical resilience. Saunders's mother, a biologist trained at St Andrews University, maintained a menagerie of pets during frequent RAF family relocations and taught her children to appreciate nature.

Saunders looked after white mice for the biology teacher at George Ward Comprehensive School during the summer, which accidentally spiraled out of control when the mice bred rapidly and mixed with wild mice in the shed. At age 11, she got her first pony, Topaz, standing 14.1 in the height in hands of her pony Topaz.

Intricate daydreams serve as a powerful psychological tool for self-idealization and coping with a humdrum reality. You construct detailed inner worlds where you cast yourself as an ideal version of yourself alongside romantic heroes or musical icons like Joni Mitchell.

Saunders spent weeks daydreaming that she was unexpectedly recruited by the Head of the British Showjumping Team to replace a lame Stroller at the Olympics, ultimately winning gold with her pony Topaz alongside fictional figures like Lord James Petroc.

2. The Birth of French and Saunders

A comedic partnership thrives when built on deep mutual friendship and an environment of uncritical playfulness where both people can sustain momentum. Finding someone who acts not just as an audience member but as a co-creator who can continuously add to a bit allows performers to build absurd scenarios without the fear of embarrassment.

Finding an uncritical comedic partner and stepping into the raw alternative comedy circuit transforms instinctive play into a powerful performance engine.

College Chemistry

Saunders and Dawn French formed an instant creative rapport at college, escalating daily absurdities from bizarre public characters to avant-garde circus acts. Achieving genuine laughter from an audience creates an addictive and validating sensation that makes social anxieties temporarily disappear.

The author describes the thrill of performing their chaotic Menopazzi Sisters routine at the end-of-term actors' cabaret, finally winning over skeptical traditional actors.

The Alternative Comedy Scene

The emergence of alternative comedy in the early 1980s provided an open, albeit raw, platform for fresh female performers. Prompted by an ad in The Stage seeking female comedy acts for a new club at the Boulevard Theatre in Soho, Saunders and Dawn French auditioned with an unscripted American sketch and were immediately hired due to the scarcity of women in the circuit.

Paul Raymond, the porn king and property magnate who owned Raymond's Revue Bar and the Boulevard Theatre, inadvertently helped the alternative comedy scene thrive and eventually secured Equity cards for the performers. Saunders and French began performing at the Comic Strip club in 1981, playing to the 200 seating capacity of the Boulevard Theatre and earning 15 in the pay in pounds per night after securing equal pay.

Navigating Bear Pits

Early comedy acts often rely on raw timing, physical presence, and mutual chemistry rather than over-formalized scripts. Saunders and French initially avoided writing down their sketches, preferring organic interaction on stage and learning their craft by watching more experienced acts from the wings after finishing their slot first.

During a desperate moment when their shallow pool of sketches ran dry, they spontaneously performed a routine mimicking Thunderbirds puppets, asking "What's the time, Brains?" before bowing and leaving the stage. Handling aggressive or inebriated crowds requires a combination of boundary-setting, speed, and sheer tenacity.

Early comedy venues like the Comedy Store were highly competitive bear pits where performers faced immediate booing and crude heckling if they gave the audience time to think, forcing acts to maintain a fast, aggressive pace. When confronted by a large group of men shouting "Get yer tits out!" at a feminist venue called the Drill Hall and the Comedy Store, Dawn French marched to the front of the stage and sternly rebuked them until the audience quieted down.

3. Television Breakthroughs and Family Life

Embracing low-budget ensemble filmmaking on Channel 4 and maintaining a strict separation between demanding careers and family life creates cultural milestones.

The Comic Strip Revolution

Alternative comedy troupes built strong communal bonds and tested material through relentless touring of small fringe venues across Britain. The Comic Strip gang traveled in a coach performing in arts centres, theatres, working men's clubs, and old cinemas, merging their social lives and work completely.

During a tour of Australia and various UK venues in 1982, performers like Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, and the author lived out of hotels and coaches, frequently visiting pubs.

Low-budget, independent ensemble productions launched on new television channels can create cultural milestones without heavy executive interference. The Comic Strip films were made with minimal budgets, small crews, and a high degree of creative freedom, allowing the ensemble to learn practical filmmaking through direct experience.

Five Go Mad in Dorset aired on Channel 4's launch on 2 November 1982 at 5 p.m. as its first-ever comedy show, pulling in 3.4 million viewers compared to previous live theatre audiences while generating a few complaints.

Balancing Work and Family

Maintaining a successful long-term creative partnership and marriage requires keeping home life and working life strictly separated while supporting each other's careers. The author and her husband established a rule that whoever was not working stayed home with the children, avoiding professional jealousy and ensuring the children always came first.

The author and Ade Edmondson raised their children in London above an Italian delicatessen, keeping their celebrity careers entirely separate from family life.

Spontaneous weddings organized with minimal notice can successfully come together through the help of friends and family. The author and Ade Edmondson gave her mother just six weeks' notice to plan their wedding in Cheshire while they disappeared on a three-week holiday to St Lucia, the Iles des Saintes, and Antigua.

They married in May 1985 in a local church in Crowton at twenty-six years of age with Jools Holland playing the organ, Rik Mayall as best man, and toddlers acting as bridesmaids including eighteen-month-old god-daughter Cordelia.

The BBC Light Entertainment Era

Collaborative writing for television sitcoms often mirrors the real-life dynamic and contrasting personalities of the co-writers. Writing Girls on Top with Ruby Wax involved capturing their real-life friction, where characters represented exaggerated versions of themselves navigating absurd situations.

The series starred Tracey Ullman and featured guest actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company while regularly pulling in 14 million regular viewers.

Securing a major television series commission in traditional broadcasting relied on executive trust in talent rather than micro-management. Light entertainment commissioning required incorporating variety elements like musical guests to emulate a live studio performance rather than a strict narrative format.

Jim Moir, the Head of Light Entertainment, commissioned French and Saunders for BBC2 with the phrase that he was putting his career on the line for them.

4. Creating Absolutely Fabulous

Writers and producers often misunderstand comedy by demanding strict adherence to a written plan. True comedic material emerges when performers play with characters, voices, and absurd scenarios until finding what genuinely tickles.

Forced into solo writing by circumstances, the creation of Edina and Patsy relies on character dynamics that normalize and encourage mutual destruction.

Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French developed their sketches by talking, playing, and acting out ideas rather than writing them down beforehand.

Stepping Out Alone

Transitioning from a double act to writing solo requires leveraging previously established characters to overcome creative panic.

When Dawn French adopted a baby in 1991, Jennifer Saunders was prompted by their manager Maureen to write a treatment on her own, leading to the creation of Absolutely Fabulous.

The author adapted an existing mad modern mother sketch from French and Saunders to anchor a brand new sitcom.

Building the Ab Fab Dynamic

Strong comedy duos rely on characters who normalize and encourage each other's destructive or absurd behavior. Characters like Edina and Patsy function as a powerful force together because they validate one another's excesses, whereas individually they might appear tragic.

The author modeled elements of Edina on PR guru Lynne Franks, while Patsy was designed around supportive friends who validate every impulse.

Casting Geniuses

Writers should remain flexible during casting and rewrite or expand roles when encountering exceptional comedic talent.

Jane Horrocks auditioned to play the daughter Saffy and was brilliant yet wrong for it, so the author adapted the secretary role of Bubble specifically to accommodate her comedic genius.

5. Collaborations and Cultural Impact

Working with merciless script editors and brilliant comic minds pushes television scripts to their absolute extremes while resonating deeply as cultural icons.

The Writer's Room Friction

Collaborating with a merciless and brilliant script editor helps elevate comedic material by introducing extreme and unconventional lines. Ruby Wax contributed sharp satirical lines such as remarks about women shopping for lunch with skeleton legs in Manolos.

Ben Elton taught Jennifer Saunders how to build gags to their absolute extremes and never miss an opportunity to inject jokes related to the specific setting. You can maximize comedic potential by infusing jokes into every possible environmental situation rather than relying solely on dialogue.

June Whitfield approached her role with meticulous professionalism and a light touch, constantly trimming down her own dialogue during rehearsals because she understood that she could accomplish more with less. During rehearsals, June Whitfield would cross out her own lines with a pencil, asking if her character Mother really needed to speak them.

Characters can become far more vicious and daring if the target of their cruelty remains entirely unaffected by it. A scene where Patsy cruelly suggested Saffy should have been aborted or tied to a motorway reservation was kept because Saffy remained strong and unaffected.

Gay Icons and Global Reach

Characters with a blend of bravado and vulnerability can unexpectedly resonate deeply as icons within the gay community. Ab Fab characters Edina and Patsy became major gay icons and were honoured at Gay Pride in New York because their characters were unapologetically gay-friendly and possessed the perfect mix of bravado and vulnerability.

Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley were invited to the Senate building in New York to receive an LGBT Freedom of the City award in June 2002.

Correspondence and Camaraderie

Maintaining a creative partnership through handwritten, illustrated faxes and in-character correspondence helps sustain comedic synergy. Saunders and Joanna Lumley exchanged endless boxes of handwritten faxes, cards, and menus where they stayed completely in character, inventing absurd personal and professional updates to amuse each other.

Joanna Lumley would send faxes complaining about her lips, chest re-inflations after an Air Ethiopia flight, and asking for money, while Saunders responded in kind as Sandwich.

6. International Adventures and Voiceover Work

Stepping into foreign film sets and animated voice recording booths exposes the stark contrasts between global production cultures and vocal techniques.

Filming in France

Saunders was flown to Paris by private jet for a half-day cameo in the French film adaptation of Absolutely Fabulous. You discover upon arrival that you are expected to deliver four complex lines of dialogue in French alongside Catherine Deneuve, despite having explicitly requested no lines.

Saunders and Catherine Deneuve performed their lines repeatedly on set while trying to avoid messing up the pronunciation before rushing back to catch their private jet to make it to their evening tour performance.

After shooting a supporting role in the 2005 French comedy L'Entente Cordiale with French stars Christian Clavier and Daniel Auteuil, Saunders discovered a year later that her entire performance had been dubbed by a hard, precise French voice. This left your appearance with a silent goldfish effect.

Unlike British sets where crew and cast queue up at a food truck, French productions halt work entirely at the same time to serve a three-course meal with wine and beer. Moderate alcohol consumption at lunch on the French set acted to oil the machine rather than slow down the afternoon.

Recording Shrek

Voice acting for animated films often takes place entirely in isolation rather than through collaborative interaction with other cast members. You voice the Fairy Godmother using your own voice mixed with a bit of Joan Collins, recording in sessions where the director reads all the other parts.

During a singing lesson for Shrek to prepare for the song 'Holding Out for a Hero', you learn to visualize the scale of notes not as up and down, but as a road ahead.

• Think of a musical scale as a road ahead of you with high notes further away and low notes closer.
• Use more breath for the notes that are further away.
• Do not stick your face in the air to sing higher notes.

The Indian Scriptwriting Odyssey

Goldie Hawn hired Jennifer Saunders and Ruby Wax to write a comedy film about a woman scattering her husband's ashes in India. Because neither writer knew anything about India or had ever been there, you focus instead on modern art and the menopause.

Goldie Hawn eventually flew Saunders and Wax first class in October 1997 to India for a ten-day research trip that involved staying with wealthy acquaintances in Mumbai and traveling through Varanasi.

7. Rural Life and Final Tours

Moving to the countryside provides space for new television creations like Jam and Jerusalem, while live tours conclude with enduring shared rituals.

You discover that writing tasks are repeatedly delayed by mandatory pre-work chores. Procrastination manifests as compulsive domestic or digital distractions disguised as necessary preparation.

While retreating to a Dartmoor cottage to write a book, Saunders spent hours cleaning dead flies, playing Bejeweled and Scrambler, texting, making coffee, looking at photos of her grandson Freddie, and contemplating sheep lanolin without writing a single word.

Devon Relocation

Moving away from the city to a rural home provides freedom and community, but also subjects private lives to media intrusion. You find that your family gains space while facing occasional lenses.

A Daily Mail helicopter and a photographer hiding in a lane prompted the author to flick the 'V's sign, which subsequently appeared in the Mirror newspaper. Frustrated by how the countryside was portrayed on television, Saunders created Jam and Jerusalem set in North Tawton, Devon.

The Laws of Procrastination

Television series can be born out of a desire to accurately represent rural community life and counter clichéd media tropes. You cast a group of brilliant women and friends including Sue Johnston, Pauline McLynn, Joanna Lumley, and Dawn French.

Following a guest appearance by psychologist Dr Tanya Byron, the two collaborated to write The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle. Dr Tanya Byron learned that pseudo dementia can simply be brought on by constipation.

The Final Tour and Tattoo

Live touring creates an isolated, highly managed bubble that requires strict discipline and constant audience engagement.

Touring with Dawn French felt like rock 'n' roll with roadies, coaches, and strict rules against drinking before a show. You maintain the raw energy of live audience interaction throughout the 2009 "Still Alive" tour leg.

During the 2000 tour, tour manager Paul Roberts announced a special guest in the audience was "The Cher herself", leading to the enduring tour catchphrase "Nice belt, lady!". To mark the end of their final tour, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders impulsively visited a tattoo parlour in Auckland.

In a tattoo parlour in Auckland in 2009, Saunders and Dawn French rejected complex memorial designs and opted for two small black stars each, placed on the ankle and wrist respectively.

8. Facing Cancer and Medical Resilience

A surprise breast cancer diagnosis imposes a structured routine of treatments, custom wigs, and psychological recovery aided by trusted companionship.

The Routine Screening

You delay your mammogram by 7 months, assuming you are exempt because you have no family history and spent time breastfeeding. A routine screening then reveals a very small lump. After spending a few days in Spain with your friend JoBo who survived breast cancer, you finally book the appointment.

When you go to the Royal Marsden for biopsy results, your friend Betty steps in to ask about options while you get distracted by the prospect of a breast lift.

Navigating Treatment

Undergoing cancer treatment provides a comforting routine and structure where medical personnel map out every step. You arrive at the hospital clinic for routine treatments, finding comfort in reliable care from your nurse Joel.

Hair loss from chemotherapy requires specialized solutions like real-hair custom wigs. You can construct a realistic wig using specific steps:

• Pin down remaining hair as flat as possible.
• Wrap layers of cling film tightly around the head.
• Draw the hairline onto the cling film.
• Remove the template to select hair color and length from a box of real hair.
• Have specialists knot individual hairs onto fine lace.
• Pin the finished wig to the head and glue down the lace hairline.

Radiotherapy requires absolute physical stillness and rhythmic breathing to target stray cancer cells without damaging vital organs. You follow precise instructions during these sessions:

• Lie still in the lead-lined room aligned with the machine using a tiny tattoo dot.
• Breathe rhythmically.
• Deliver rays in pulses on the out-breath.

Managing Tamoxifen and Recovery

Tamoxifen therapy blocks oestrogen and abruptly induces menopause, triggering severe psychological effects like depression and irrational irritability. You experience deep depression and misplaced anger that Tanya Byron diagnoses rather than simple bad moods.

10 Key Ideas

1. A childhood defined by frequent moves, a menagerie of animals, and a family rule against taking oneself too seriously builds the ideal psychological soil for humor.
2. Finding an uncritical comedic partner and stepping into the raw alternative comedy circuit transforms instinctive play into a powerful performance engine.
3. Embracing low-budget ensemble filmmaking on Channel 4 and maintaining a strict separation between demanding careers and family life creates cultural milestones.
4. Forced into solo writing by circumstances, the creation of Edina and Patsy relies on character dynamics that normalize and encourage mutual destruction.
5. Working with merciless script editors and brilliant comic minds pushes television scripts to their absolute extremes while resonating deeply as cultural icons.
6. Stepping into foreign film sets and animated voice recording booths exposes the stark contrasts between global production cultures and vocal techniques.
7. Moving to the countryside provides space for new television creations like Jam and Jerusalem, while live tours conclude with enduring shared rituals.
8. Live touring creates an isolated, highly managed bubble that requires strict discipline and constant audience engagement.
9. A surprise breast cancer diagnosis imposes a structured routine of treatments, custom wigs, and psychological recovery aided by trusted companionship.
10. Tamoxifen therapy blocks oestrogen and abruptly induces menopause, triggering severe psychological effects like depression and irrational irritability.