{"id":471922,"date":"2026-05-06T22:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471922\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T22:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:01:09","slug":"amandaland-on-bbc-one-amanda-is-one-of-the-best-comedy-roles-british-tv-has-produced-in-years-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471922\/","title":{"rendered":"Amandaland on BBC One: Amanda is one of the best comedy roles British TV has produced in years \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trick with a comedy character such as Lucy Punch\u2019s vacant influencer Amanda Hughes \u2013 back for a second season of Amandaland <\/b>(BBC One, 9pm) \u2013 is to play up their delusions and idiosyncrasies without making them seem manically unhinged. That balancing act is carried off more or less to perfection in this spin-off of Sharon Horgan\u2019s<\/a> Motherland<\/a> that has far less to say about the (boring) trials of modern parenting than its predecessor and is much the better for it.<\/p>\n

Amanda is reintroduced making a Dragon\u2019s Den-style pitch to a potential \u201cFar East investor\u201d. In other words, the bank manager at her local HSBC branch. Here and elsewhere, a crueller show would portray her as catastrophically deluded. But Amandaland skimps on the nastiness and instead quietly celebrates her optimism, her can-do spirit and her complete detachment from reality.<\/p>\n

Much of the series charm is down to Punch, who \u2013 in contrast to, say, Ricky Gervais\u2019s<\/a> portrayal of David Brent in The Office \u2013 doesn\u2019t have it in her to actively dislike her alter ego. Yes, Amanda is shallow, flighty and an enthusiastic snob. But her heart is generally in the right place. She genuinely believes her career as an influencer is about to catapult her to internet fame.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Motherland star Philippa Dunne: \u2018People love Anne, and it really touches me\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She is matched for self-delusion by a brilliant Joanna Lumley<\/a>. She returns as Amanda\u2019s vacant mother, Felicity, the sort of sheltered posho who doesn\u2019t know how to work an oven and whose idea of a birthday present for her grandson is a hastily scribbled cheque.<\/p>\n

Every comedy needs a straight man or woman. Amanda has the perfect foil in Irish actor Philippa Dunne<\/a> as her underdog sidekick, Anne. The sort of bestie who will tell you comforting lies all day long, Anne undergoes a personality reboot when a fellow school mum encourages her to be assertive. But this does not go down well with Amanda who has problems of her own in the shape of a rivalry with newcomer Abs (Harriet Webb), ex of her neighbour, Mal.<\/p>\n

Amanda is an absurd creation \u2013 Punch has described her as tragic. But, then, life is absurd too, and the show does not spare the supporting crew of Anne, Mal (Samuel Anderson), Fi (Rochenda Sandall) and her chef wife Della (Siobh\u00e1n McSweeney<\/a>), all of whom are, in their own way, almost (but not quite) as decoupled from reality as Amanda.<\/p>\n

Amandaland\u2019s greatest asset, however, is not its cast but a steady supply of zingers, which keep the action ticking along. These undercut the bleak<\/p>\n

truth that Amanda is not the sort of person you\u2019d want as a neighbour \u2013 she might complain if you showed up in the background of one of her TikToks. Still as a comedy character, she is one of the best things British television has produced in years. Her second season in the spotlight is a proper treat for connoisseurs of cringe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trick with a comedy character such as Lucy Punch\u2019s vacant influencer Amanda Hughes \u2013 back for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[3412,18,117,19,17,6752,58035,36477,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-471922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-joanna-lumley","14":"tag-sharon-horgan","15":"tag-siobhan-mcsweeney","16":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116529889475549969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}