The sometimes scabrous and always over the top British sitcom featuring the drunkest and least reliable publicist and fashion maven ever will be made into a feature film which will begin shooting in October. It will be a surprising climax to the show which began in 1992 and aired its last episodes in 2012.

Written, as was the TV show, by Jennifer Saunders, who also plays the haphazard Edina Monsoon, the film – its name at one stage announced as Edina And Patsy - will be made, and presumably be set, in the south of France. (The Bahamas was Saunders original dream but the budget is not stretching that far.) Earlier this year Saunders promised that if the film went ahead it would feature "virtually everyone that's ever been in the series".

Already committed, for really how could the film exist without her, is Joanna Lumley, playing Edina's internally decaying/externally fabulous partner in crime, Patsy Stone. Lumley confirmed the start date for filming this week and promised that it would be "ravishingly funny" and of course, "completely fabulous".

Although the plot has not been revealed one could hope there may be a hint in a magazine famously described in the TV series: "The mood for the next edition: Sex, bitch, aristo, sex, punk, whore, bitch, prossie, lessie, punk, tart, slut. Oh but Alex… Alex,with lovely shoes."

Elsewhere it's entirely likely that the catering budget will be somewhat askew: precious little food but industrial quantities of vodka and champagne. As for the wardrobe? Need you ask?