The talented writer and performer is best-known to U.S. audiences as Edina Monsoon in TV's hilarious sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous", which Saunders also scripted. She began her training at London's famed Central School for Speech and Drama, where she met Dawn French. The two formed a comedy act and performed in local cabarets before successfully auditioning for The Comic Strip, a troupe that included then-unknowns Robbie Coltrane, Alexi Sayle and Adrian Edmonson (who later became Saunders' husband--French also met her future husband, Lenny Henry, there).
Theater soon gave way to TV, where the troupe found a larger audience to witness the blossoming of their irreverent brand of comedy on "The Comic Strip Presents...", an anthology series. Writing and starring in many episodes, Saunders quickly became recognized as a major talent with assured timing and delivery. Saunders also appeared on such British TV shows as her husband's "The Young Ones", "Girls on Top", and several Rita Rudner and Ruby Wax specials.
After appearing in the first two Comic Strip movies, ("The Supergrass" 1985; and "Eat the Rich" 1987), Saunders and French created, wrote and starred in the sketch comedy series "French and Saunders". Often they were the only two on screen. While male English comics routinely don dresses to play a lass, Saunders and French went against the grain by often dressing as lads. Furthermore, French and Saunders often utilized prosthetics that thoroughly masked their identities. On the big screen--generally with her husband and/or French--Saunders also turned up in "More Bad News" and "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door" (two 1987 comedies), "The Strike" (1987), portraying Meryl Streep, of all people, Kenneth Branagh's "A Midwinter's Tale" (1996), as an American producer and "Muppet Treasure Island" (also 1996), as an innkeeper.
From 1992-94, Saunders created, wrote and starred in the sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" (shown on Comedy Central in the US, 1994-95). She played Edina Monsoon, a boozy, pill-popping, pot-smoking fashion publicist whose life revolves around her equally toxic life-long friend Patsy Stone (played to the outrageous limit by Joanna Lumley) and her reserved daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha). The series was an enormous hit in both Britain and the US, with many reviewers hailing it as the most original--and vulgar--comedy in years. American TV star Roseanne acquired the U.S. rights to the show with plans for an ill-fated remake.
After "Ab Fab," as it became known in the States, folded, Saunders continued to appear in comedic supporting roles and cameos, including a very droll 1998 guest spot on "Friends" as Ross' prospective British mother-in-law and in the Spice Girls' film "Spice World" (1997). She reunited Dawn French for "French & Saunders Live" and reconvened with her "AbFab" collaborators Joanna Lumley, Julia Swahala and Jane Horrocks to play out-of-work actresses for the short "Mirrorball" in 2000, filmed as a potential pilot for an unrealized TV series. The comedienne then kept a relatively low profile, resurfacing in Hollywood in 2004 to give voice to the Fairy Godmother in the CGI sequel "Shrek 2."
Saunders is one of the few female English comics to export her success to the U.S. Tracey Ullmann may also come to mind, but she is primarily an actress rather than a comedian or a writer. Also, it should be noted that unlike stateside, where most comedies are written by committee, Saunders writes almost all of her own material.