"I'm so looking forward to seeing them all again. It's going to be like seeing old family!"
Lynne Franks has more reason than most to be excited about the new Ab Fab film, released today. The legendary PR boss is acknowledged as the inspiration for Jennifer Saunders' character Eddie: flamboyant, mouthy, fashion-obsessed. Although Lynne says that the connection "wasn't always helpful", she's learned to love it. "The country needs a good laugh to cheer us up, and what better than a new Ab Fab movie?"
She's seen the trailer and feels that she and Eddie parted company some time ago. "Eddie and Patsy do seem to be rather stuck in the superficial world of fashion," she says, although she hopes they will have matured a bit. "It'd be nice to see them at a feminist rally…well, maybe they will do that." She loved seeing Saunders and Joanna Lumley in character at last weekend's Pride parade.
The only aspect of Eddie's character that Lynne says firmly was not based on her was Eddie's relationship with disapproving daughter Saffy. "That was a bit cringey," she says. "Maybe it'll have changed in the movie."
Lynne today seems just as busy as in the 1980s, when the kosher butcher's daughter started her own PR company at her kitchen table. She became a prime macher in the fashion world, setting up London Fashion week and the British Fashion Awards. In the 1990s she became a spokesperson on ethical business practices, women's rights, spiritual values and conscious living.
She's pinning her hopes on Theresa May
She's recently moved to Somerset, moving into an eco-architecture house with her eco-architect new partner Heinz Pahl-Kaup, who she met in Bali. "It was love at first sight. Not bad for my age," she says - she's 67. Somerset suits her, partly because she loves nature and the countryside and partly because a lot of old friends have also migrated there. "The 1980s Ab Fab scene has relocated to Somerset," she says. "And I do ping pong back and forth to London all the time."
She's writing a book. "It's about community power, women's grassroots initiatives, women taking leadership roles in their towns and villages. There's a lot of that happening and I think now there's going to be a lot more." She also works in the corporate world, advising businesses on their values and ethics and in particular how to empower women. She's been doing this for 20 years, but says there is still a long way to go. "We are still living in a man-made world." She offers as an example the recent Brexit campaign. "It was dominated by white, middle class men, going at eachother in an extremely obnoxious way and not thinking about the damage they were doing." Even the most prominent women involved were "too strident" she says. Later this year she's going to be speaking to young professionals at JW3 about her business philosophy.
Her vision of feminine empowerment is collaborative and compassionate. She's a Labour Party member, but in the current climate she's pinning her hopes on Theresa May. "She talks a lot of sense," she says. "Women do things differently. Look how sensible Angela Merkel is."
The Brexit vote means she will stop running retreats in Mallorca: "I think people won't be going to Europe as much," and instead offer them at her Somerset home and in Bali. She offers yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, cooking classes, massages, facials, energy healing, art classes and much more, a huge menu of wellness options that can be customised by groups of women into their own unique retreat. It's not hard to imagine Eddie and Patsy rocking up for their very own goddess-centred retreat.
Why does Lynne think Ab Fab has endured since its first series in 1992?
"It's about women's friendship and women's experiences. And it's always such a good laugh."
