{"id":940865,"date":"2026-05-06T05:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/940865\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:28:15","slug":"everyone-knows-an-amanda-joanna-lumley-and-lucy-punch-on-the-return-of-comedy-smash-amandaland-tv-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/940865\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everyone knows an Amanda!\u2019 Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch on the return of comedy smash, Amandaland | TV comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a north London TV studio, there\u2019s a sense of unpredictability in the air. A gaggle of singing teenagers are on set; there\u2019s a dog traipsing around; and \u2013 just down the hall in the canteen \u2013 Joanna Lumley<\/a> has paused our interview to very politely ask a catering lady not to pack up her tangerine for her. \u201cDarling, I literally cry with gratitude but I don\u2019t need it in a box this time, it can travel on its own,\u201d she purrs. She\u2019s as poised as you might imagine \u2013 even if she looks ready for an arctic expedition, wrapped in a big mustard puffer jacket against the December cold. \u201cSorry, I\u2019ve gone off on a tangent.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about Amandaland, the funniest and biggest comedy on British TV. Masterminded by the crack team of Sharon Horgan, Barunka O\u2019Shaughnessy, Helen Serafinowicz, Laurence Rickard and Holly Walsh, this spin-off of the Bafta-winning Motherland has shifted the focus from perma-stressed Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) to pretentious side character Amanda (Lucy Punch) and her mother, Felicity, played by Lumley. The show has been an undeniable hit, with the Christmas special \u2013 an Absolutely Fabulous reunion set at Aunt Joan\u2019s (Jennifer Saunders) decrepit country pile \u2013 the most-watched comedy over 2025\u2019s festive season, with 7.4 million viewers.<\/p>\n

Intergenerational trauma \u2026 Amanda and Felicity, with Morten (Anya McKenna-Bruce), Georgie (Miley Locke) and Manus (Alexander Shaw). Photograph: BBC\/Merman<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking about Lucy and her gorgeousness,\u201d continues Lumley. The love-in with her Amandaland co-star has been more than 20 years in the making. With their masses of blond hair and talent for playing icy divas, they first portrayed the wicked stepmother and one of her daughters in 2004\u2019s Cinderella satire, Ella Enchanted. Punch, says Lumley, struck her as \u201csmart and good and committed. She\u2019s like an express train \u2013 you could shovel coal into her!\u201d As for Lumley, Punch describes her as the \u201cspecial sauce\u201d of the show, adding that: \u201cAlex [Shaw] and Miley [Locke], who play my kids, have the most wonderful relationship with her. They have some in-joke about 6-7? I\u2019ve no idea what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Punch, it\u2019s the relationship between her and Lumley\u2019s characters that really makes the show. \u201cI think seeing the dynamic with her mother, and why she is how she is, generates sympathy for an unlikable character,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I always said, when talking to the writers, that I didn\u2019t want to pull back on any of her obnoxious behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hence the series one plotline in which Amanda\u2019s move from Chiswick to south Harlesden saw her try to rebrand it \u201cSoHa\u201d. Or her attempt to offload most of her possessions, ending with her fighting with a woman at a car boot sale over a giant metal horse. Not to mention the way she attempts to claim that her sales gig at a bathroom showroom was a \u201ccollaboration\u201d that fits into her ambition to become a lifestyle influencer.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor her, the stakes are so high on even the most petty things \u2013 she\u2019s a rather tragic figure really,\u201d says Punch, who, away from set, is Amanda\u2019s more bohemian twin, hair out of its blowdried cast and fake nails removed. (\u201cI\u2019ve usually got a head full of dry shampoo, and haven\u2019t used a brush for about three days,\u201d she says.)<\/p>\n

Ready for her close-up \u2026 tragi-comic Amanda. Photograph: BBC\/Merman<\/p>\n

Naturally, Punch \u2013 who lives in the US with her partner, the artist Dinos Chapman, and their two children \u2013 has had to get used to being called Amanda a lot, especially when she\u2019s in the UK.<\/p>\n

At a hotel in Manchester, she accidentally jumped the queue for a key card, \u201cand the girl went: \u2018Such an Amanda move.\u2019 I would hate for anyone to think I was like that.\u201d Across an IMDb page that takes in film and TV \u2013 everything from the 2011 Cameron Diaz comedy, Bad Teacher, to British TV staples such as Doc Martin and new US tech bro drama, The Audacity \u2013 Punch has never played a character for so long. She\u2019s also played a lot of meanies. Has she ever worried about being typecast? \u201cWell, I haven\u2019t worried about it because it\u2019s kept me working,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve played so many ugly stepsister types and Amandas \u2026 and I enjoy it. From teenagers up, people say they love it \u2013 it\u2019s a joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

One change this time round is that the scenes filmed at antiheroine Amanda\u2019s flat are no longer shot on location. Series two moves her home to a TV studio, which is slightly bigger, so the crew can all pile in, with no traffic sounds outside. \u201cI\u2019d love the people who owned the house to come and see it,\u201d says Lumley. \u201cThey\u2019d be jealous I think \u2026 or it might be creepy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scene they\u2019re filming today involves a group of girls getting ready for their post-GCSE party, in an Urban Outfitters-coded bedroom. It\u2019s chaos: the girls try to salvage the work of an incompetent makeup artist while Amanda tries (and fails) to raise everyone\u2019s spirits with a tray of mocktails.<\/p>\n

Amanda\u2019s kids were in primary school what seems like five minutes ago, but here their adolescence is firmly cemented, via exams, errant condoms and that very American of exports: the high-school prom. \u201cIt\u2019s about what it means to be a parent of teenagers and all of those challenges,\u201d says Punch. \u201cIt\u2019s fuel for funnier, bigger stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Series two marks not only a shift for Amanda\u2019s kids, Manus and Georgie, but for Amanda, too. After the end of her short-lived romance with businessman Johannes in the last series, she has declared herself a \u201cv-cel\u201d (voluntary celibate). Things have also changed for Felicity, who is more clingy than before. She joins a dating app, and frequently ingratiates herself with Amanda\u2019s SoHa circle, invading the kids\u2019 football pitch in a black cab.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs everyone ages, your parents are obviously ageing and getting more vulnerable, too. You worry about them more, and that\u2019s what Amanda is dealing with now,\u201d says Punch. \u201cThis very fabulous, independent woman is now becoming more dependent on her, socially and emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does Lumley think it\u2019s important to show an older woman dating? \u201cYes,\u201d she says, sipping a builder\u2019s tea between scenes. \u201cI think the main thing is: try not to be lonely in life. Loneliness is horrible, it\u2019s sad. Being on your own isn\u2019t lonely, but loneliness is horrid. Even if you don\u2019t want to date, join a reading circle or an art class. One of my friends couldn\u2019t draw a stick man and now she\u2019s fabulous [at it].\u201d<\/p>\n

Mellowed with age? Lumley as Felicity. Photograph: BBC\/Merman<\/p>\n

Felicity, says Lumley, is \u201cobnoxious and snobbish\u201d \u2013 but she has a lot of love for her, too. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to love the characters you play, because every person believes that they\u2019re right about everything, and that they are marvellous,\u201d she says. In series one, Felicity wasn\u2019t particularly feminist (on the subject of sexual harassment, she said: \u201cWe used to call it flirting\u201d). \u201cShe seems to have laid off that a bit this time,\u201d says Lumley. \u201cShe was very Catherine Deneuve about all that. Well, for my generation, also, because #MeToo didn\u2019t exist, you just learned how to dodge the gropey hands and the sweaty approaches and get away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an actor, she has moved into \u201ca lovely realm of mostly grannies and mothers now, which is very nice, because you can drop off the edge of the world. I mean, lots of [actors] just say, right, that\u2019s been fabulous, I\u2019ve had a great time doing it. But if you\u2019re still there and the phone still rings, it\u2019s so nice to be offered interesting, well-written parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Series two ably finds more for all its cast members to do, and moments where they become embroiled in the same mischief \u2013 chiefly, when Amanda finds a mystery condom down the back of her sofa and has to work out who left it there. (Kids? Mum?) For Punch, whose eldest son was born in 2015, it gave a preview of the issues today\u2019s teens are facing. \u201cIt used to be that, when you didn\u2019t get invited to a party when you were 14, you were at home watching telly with your dog; now, you\u2019re like, \u2018Everyone\u2019s having fun without me\u2019. As soon as you get a phone, you\u2019re exposed to absolutely everything. It\u2019s nonstop and relentless \u2013 it must be scary and exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n

One reason Amandaland has been such a huge hit is that \u2013 like Motherland before it \u2013 it shows the harsh realities of parenthood, albeit pushed to its most surreal and hysterical ends. But, as Punch says, this vision of a nightmarish, snobby mum is only partly fictional. \u201cAs one of the mothers of the kids on set said: \u2018Everyone knows an Amanda.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Amandaland is on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Stan in Australia on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a north London TV studio, there\u2019s a sense of unpredictability in the air. A gaggle of singing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-940865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116525983895390276","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}