Joanna Lumley puts a cultivated voice and sharp comic timing to unkind use. We like her best when nobody insists on a softer side; Amandaland allows that, though another formidable mother is hardly adventurous casting.
Fi1m perspective
In Amandaland (2025), Joanna Lumley’s Felicity makes her daughter’s need for approval painfully easy to understand. She is a disparaging mother, and the programme leaves the relationship without much reassurance. We laughed at Felicity’s disparagement of Amanda because Lumley does not soften it with a suggestion of motherly concern. This is Lumley doing what we value most in her comedy: allowing someone to be thoroughly objectionable without making the performance tiresome.
Her breakthrough came in action rather than comedy. Purdey in The New Avengers (1976–77) brought her to prominence, followed by Sapphire & Steel (1979–82). Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012) marked the decisive comic turn. Working with writer and co-star Jennifer Saunders, Lumley made the louche, grotesque character her defining part. Those earlier action and science-fiction roles are worth remembering when the plummy voice threatens to become the only thing a part requires of her.
That voice is an efficient way of establishing class, but repeated casting as formidable mothers and grandmothers can limit what she is asked to do. The danger is that a part will settle for the accent and leave her little else to play. Amandaland gives her more to work with: Felicity’s disapproval matters to the woman trying so hard to remain impressive. Opposite Lucy Punch’s Amanda, Lumley helps make the snobbery more than a succession of superior remarks, because we can see why Amanda needs to keep making them.
The limitation in Amandaland is elsewhere. Its wider ensemble takes too much effort to seem like people who regularly spend time together, and the number of jokes cannot quite conceal that. Punch, Lumley and Phillipa Dunne, whose Anne gives Amanda another difficult relationship, provide firmer reasons to return than the group as a whole. Try it for Lumley at her least consoling, but do not expect even Felicity to make everyone else fit together.
Biography
Dame Joanna Lumley is a British actress. She began her career as a model before moving into television and film, with early roles including an appearance in Coronation Street (1973) and Purdey in The New Avengers (1976–1977).
Lumley is best known for playing Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012), for which she received two BAFTA TV Awards. Her other credits include Sapphire & Steel (1979–1982), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Ella Enchanted (2004), Corpse Bride (2005), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and Wednesday (2022–). She reprised the role of Felicity Sanderson, originally seen in Motherland, as the mother of the central character in the spin-off series Amandaland (2025–2026).
