We rate Mandie Fletcher’s feel for ensemble comedy, particularly her work with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. She is most persuasive when a strong regular cast has room to be funny without celebrity interruptions.
Fi1m perspective
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley make selfishness funny in Absolutely Fabulous (1992), and make exhausting people worth spending half an hour with. We enjoyed their company more than their behaviour deserved, because the two performers are so good together. This is the clearest reason we have to recommend Mandie Fletcher: her work in ensemble comedy, where keeping several comic performances working together matters. There is a limit to that praise, though; the programme occasionally lets celebrity appearances interrupt the better jokes.
Fletcher began directing sitcom episodes on the final series of Butterflies (1983). Blackadder II (1986) and Blackadder the Third (1987) followed, and her reputation for comic timing rests particularly on that work. She also directed episodes of Only Fools and Horses (1986), establishing a substantial footing in television comedy before moving into features. Her feature debut was Deadly Advice (1994). Television remained a continuing part of her work through the following decades, rather than simply a preliminary step towards directing films.
It matters that these are shared achievements. Saunders, a writer as well as a performer, is an important collaborator, alongside Lumley, and we would not give a director ownership of everything that makes them funny. Fletcher’s recurring work with established female performers and writers is nevertheless a good reason to take her contribution seriously. In Absolutely Fabulous, the regular cast makes the characters’ selfishness bearable, and our reservation about the celebrity appearances follows directly from that: they take time away from people who are already giving us enough reason to watch.
Her return to features brought the Absolutely Fabulous film (2016), followed by Patrick (2018), which she also wrote. The former preserves the television comedy’s tone, a useful achievement when the established performers are such a large part of the attraction. But we see no reason to treat the move to feature length as an improvement in itself; sustaining half an hour of comedy deserves respect without needing a longer version to validate it. Start with the television Absolutely Fabulous, and tolerate the celebrity interruptions for the sake of the regulars.
Biography
Mandie Fletcher (born 27 December 1954) is a British television and film director. She began her career at the BBC as an assistant floor manager and production manager on comedy programmes, becoming a director of situation comedies with episodes of the final series of Butterflies (1983).
Fletcher directed the second and third series of Blackadder (1986–1987), winning the BAFTA Television Award for Best Comedy in 1988. She also directed episodes of Only Fools and Horses (1986) and later worked on series including Absolutely Fabulous.
Her feature films include Deadly Advice (1994), Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016) and Patrick (2018).
