Patsy in Paris: Abfab icon packs her bags for tour of three cities
At the age of 75, Dame Joanna Lumley remains one of the most glamorous women on TV. And yet, she loves “mucking in”. This is the woman who once stripped down to her underwear to get the phones ringing for Children In Need (it worked), trekked the Himalayas during In The Kingdom Of The Thunder Dragon and appeared without make-up and stranded on a desert island for Girl Friday.
“I’ve been on camera looking as bad as can be, an awful lot worse than when I go to the supermarket,” she says.“you do whatever you can to stop your face looking awful in the morning, then go out and forget about it. If people find you attractive that’s wonderful, if they don’t that’s terrible – but there’s nothing you can do about it.”
You just can’t keep a good woman down – which is perhaps why Lumley keeps packing her bags and going on adventures to far-flung places.
It’s also something she’s been doing her entire life. “As a child I did long boat journeys,” she remarks.“all our journeys out to Hong Kong (her family lived there for two years) were five weeks, and out to Singapore when I was in Malay was four weeks, so I am a good traveller.”
Lumley began her working life as a model, but soon followed her heart to become an actor. Early roles in Some
Girls Do and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service led to appearances in Coronation Street and Hammer’s The Satanic Rites Of Dracula before playing Purdey in The New Avengers.
She followed that with cult show Sapphire & Steel, then reinvented herself as a comedy performer as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. Now, though, you’re more likely to find her on a globe-trotting TV adventure.
Although she has been making travel-related documentaries for more than a quarter of a century, she’s upped the pace in recent years. Even during lockdown, she appeared in Unseen Adventures and Home Sweet Home: Travels in My Own Land.
Now she’s off again, in Joanna Lumley’s Great Cities Of The World. Her latest series takes her to Rome, Paris and Berlin. However, she promises to avoid tourist hotspots such as the Spanish Steps, the Eiffel Tower and the Brandenburg Gate.
But her own ideal destination may surprise viewers.“i would recommend Mongolia,” she once said.“you can fly direct to Ulan Bator. It sounds like the back of the world, but it’s the friendliest city, very hip kids there wearing skinny trousers, listening to hip-hop artists.” Joanna Lumley’s Great Cities Of The World, ITV, Thursday, 9pm