Whatever Happened With Jennifer Saunders' 'The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle'?

Recently released on DVD but originally aired on British TV in 2007 comes Jennifer Saunders' hilarious show "The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle." Only six episodes of the show were made for BBC2, and they aired over here only once on the Sundance Channel, as far as we can tell, last year -- we must have been busy that month. It's a send-up of talk show culture, and television in general, and while not as slapsticky and gut-busting as "Ab Fab," it's still hilarious and sharp.

The show received some tepid reviews in the UK and in the NYT, but now that we've seen it for ourselves we can't help but feel like it got shafted.  Miranda Richardson plays Helena, a sort of darker, more unlikeable version of Patsy whose child speaks only Spanish because she spends all her time with the maid, and Saunders plays a British version of Ricky Lake-meets-Jerry Springer. Though a second season has been reportedly in production for two years, and we can only hope that this DVD release signals its arrival soon, and not that the show was cancelled. (The only troubling thing is that Saunders has also been occupied with an all-too-English series about equestrians and an upper-middle-class ladies club called "Jam & Jerusalem" -- a.k.a. "Clatterford" in its U.S. DVD release. After the jump, a clip from "Vivienne Vyle" and one from "Clatterford" as well.)

"Vivienne" will clearly gain an American cult following if it only gets a chance for some screen time and publicity stateside -- *PR*, darling -- and we all know that a cult following in the U.S. is pretty much equivalent to the entire population of England.  [NYT, Variety]

First, a clip featuring a production meeting on "Vivienne Vyle" in which they brainstorm future guest for the show, include men who get their anuses stitched up.

Buy "The Life & Times of Vivienne Vyle" Season 1 on DVD at Amazon.