An evening with Dame Joanna Lumley

well good evening and welcome to this live televised telegraph extra event an evening with dame joanna lumney before i introduce my esteemed guests i just want to thank you as our subscribers this is exclusive to you so you're very lucky to be here we think we've got over a thousand people watching this evening which is fantastic a bit of housekeeping to begin with just so you know how to watch this on full screen so you get the full experience so to get the video to full screen you click on the square on the bottom right i'd like you to submit questions as well because we're going to give you an opportunity to ask ask joanna anything that you like in the latter half of our chit chat so you can do that by scrolling down and adding your comments to the q and a box please keep your comments clean as if i need to say that although we'll probably do some dirty comments if you really really want to um now obviously our guest needs no introduction at all but let's just give you a very quick one where to begin she's an actress she's a presenter she's an activist she's an all-around legend she's a bafta winner and now she is a dane because she was named in the new year's honors 2022 as dame joanna lumley do i need to call you danger no you don't joanna it is then thank you so much for joining us it's not being a momentous here i asked you earlier but you haven't collected the gong yet have you no they in the lovely letter they sent which i've got to say was such a shock that i burst into tears well i'd looked at it an official envelope it looked though to come from the driving license place the dvl yeah and uh anyway i opened it up and it said dbe and my husband wasn't at home and i just sat down and blubbed i thought this is a terrific shock they must have got it wrong it was in december yes so it was very late and i thought maybe somebody's dropped out or maybe um what should i anyway i was terribly terribly thrilled and touched um but they did say it'll be ages before you can go and be specially done i don't think you'd have the sword you have no something put around your neck maybe but they said the backlog is so colossal from covid oh so it could be so i'm keeping fit so at least i can walk there because it might be the zimmer you know but you can call yourself dane joanna from the moment it's announced the moment and have you been did you get keep your first envelope as being sent does it say dane joanna on the envelope from buckingham palace no so it's a secret until you open it yes that's right because i wasn't a dame then because they do allow you to turn it down oh yes yes well it did i asked my husband i said do you think i should turn it down does does this make me somehow different will people think that i'm vain or proud or different i didn't want people ever to think i was different i had an obe which i adored and obi-wan kenobi and i thought that was so undeserved and thrilling and i loved that um so anyway i said do you think he said they'd be insane so always bowing to his greater wishes i wrote and said thank you very much indeed that's lovely well congratulations and it's well deserved thank you let's have a look at your book a queen for all seasons because effectively you've written a book about a national treasure and then i kind of thought but you are a national treasure and maybe you don't like that term because you might find it a bit ageist no it does you usually have to have been around for quite a long time to become a national treasure um and i've been banging about for at least 50 years in people's lives and memories at least and what prompted you then to decide because i know you've written this is your eighth book you've written your memoirs you've written other books why did you decide to do this for this year to tell you the truth um the publishers hover on staten came to me and said did you remember that it's going to be the queen's platinum jubilee next year and you were alive and you were six years old when you knew the queen king george vi that died and the queen came to the throne although she wasn't crowned um what it seems so recently that we'd had diamond jubilees and golden jubilees i can remember the silver jubilees i couldn't believe that suddenly to come to this and that it was 70 i said what should we do i'd love to do something that is entirely like giving her um a bouquet of flowers something that is not i'm not a historian i'm not a biographer i wanted it to be just gorgeous things that if she ever looked at it she'd think how lovely how nice how kind see it wasn't about the royal family it wasn't about any of the members of our family although some of them creep in because they're referred to or whatever it was just for her because i do admire her enormously so then scritch scratch scratch and then it was just a matter of collecting all kinds of memories anecdotes diaries written pieces pieces from books short poems things that people recalled pieces of parliamentary speeches all kinds of things referring to the queen and it's made a lovely book i my job was to arrange it into kind of vague themes so rather than go from right at the beginning when you can imagine there was a lot about the accession and the coronation and so on and then gradually as you get through and through and through and through in life becomes more humdrum and then we come into the 20th century and there's less stuff to write um i thought i would just do it thematically so the queen at home the queen on tour the queen with the stars you know the queen's passions about dogs and horses well also it's very much kind of a homage to a woman as opposed to just a head of state you know trying to get a little bit beneath her skin as to who she she she is but camilla that's exactly what i wanted to do because she is i mean god saved me for saying this but we are all the same all people are the same they're either men roughly or women roughly but that's all we are but some people either it's thrust upon them or they make themselves into something now this is both for the queen she was not born to be queen she was born to be a princess a royal princess and then her uncle edward viii abdicated and suddenly she was in line the only two daughters of king george vi and nobody else waiting to take the throne so she was just so it was dumped on her but then something else happened she made that vow when she was only 21 that for her whole life whether it be long or short should be devoted to the service of her people in the commonwealth and she made herself into something absolutely extraordinary somebody who never failed who never let people down who's diligent in everything she did immaculately turned out having to push aside our natural passions which were for the outdoor life dogs horses non-pomposity and simply step into this extraordinary what the queen mother said this great and lonely station yes and actually we can reflect that she's had a pretty difficult two years i mean you you go back to all of the history you've been sharing your own memories of the coronation yes and at the same time she remains this remarkably robust figure despite everything that's thrown at her and all of the problems that have engulfed the house of windsor over the years i have a theory so flimsy you could shoot it down in a second but that people are a they're tribal b they like to have a head person and see i think they're familial we like to think of people as being kind of in look apparently as parents of it people who would do the right thing we want to look up to people who rule us or run things we want them to be rock solid squeaky cleaners head master or mistress or head teacher as we must call them or heads of anything we have the government we want people to be unassailably good and true and honest and so i think we look up to people and i think the queen has become a kind of a sort of mothership yes we want her to be the one when something catastrophic happens yes she sends a message and we all read the message and go how beautifully put that was i hope they'll be comforted by getting that or when that's enormous congratulations you think how proud they must be to hear that the queen saw them skating or whatever it is you know grandmother of the nation yeah grandmother used to be young young young yes bride of the nation then mother of the nation then grandmother and our great grandmother and you've been lucky enough to meet her what was that experience like well there's been several haven't they but you write about one particular moment in the book well there have been several i mean the truth is is the very very first time you see the queen usually it's you're in a line up or something so luckily you're not expected to say or do anything except remember to say your majesty but not first because she must say something first and not to start babbling on unfortunately you do lose all sense of sense you just become completely insane i didn't write about this in the book but i was invited to a private private launch at buckingham palace where the queen invites maybe six or eight members of the public all different walks of life i remember the time i went we had the new chief rabbi jonathan sax at the time we had a banker we had there a woman head of scottish police or something quite a random section but it's a small gathering and it's in a room not very much bigger than this um beautifully decorated big windows looking out on buckingham palace garden and it's there in it's their own sitting room it's their own place of lovely things and then suddenly a little saturation of small little feet little crick crack cricket little corgis coming in then comes the queen and she is so astonishingly familiar and whenever you see somebody in 3d rather than just photographs you're always taken aback and you get a bit sort of gasping and then all sense leaves you and so the queen came up and talked to people came round to me and i was standing with the scottish policewoman and the queen said very kindly said what what do you what do you surrept nowadays and i said i'm very keen on on the decriminalizing drugs why why did i say that i mean it was something that had occurred to me but it wasn't i was a mad king about it why did i suddenly think that i hadn't the queen looked at me so kindly went interesting to tell i said well you know if you put if you put cocaine between cough mixture and corn plasters and you had to make people and she said i see i see i dug myself deeper and deeper that's like the rabbit in headlights phenomenon that anybody that's ever met her also she's disarmingly different to how she appears on stamps and money because she's quite sparkly and smiley and not at all like this or steer like that and a lot of people the contributors in my book several of them um said what a beautiful skin she has yes and how dazzling her cornflower blue eyes were how how entranced people became entranced a lot of this is to do with fame because i know i've met very famous people um and you do stare at them a bit yes because even used it but you're really famous no all i do is stare at famous people or even news readers that's unkind news readers i didn't mean that you're not famous you are you're very famous but i greet them sometimes i kiss them i think i must know them i've kissed people but on that subject because people are always intrigued when you've got your level of fame i mean you're just so instantly recognizable how is it to live with that i i think you seem to enjoy it you don't mind people asking for selfies and autographs well look camilla this is the truth when it started when it was all those years ago in the 1970s mid 70s when i did um purdy and the new avengers and i realized that my life would never be the same because i would be known i would be known i would be recognized and it's if it's not too horrible to say it's rather like losing a limb because you go i'll be lame for the rest of my life you go no you won't you'll manage this you'll put in a prosthetic limb and you'll walk and i thought if this is going to happen to me for the rest of my life you've got to make it something you love otherwise you're going to have a hateful hateful time yeah so just go how absolutely lovely actually that's my kind of theory about life start saying how absolutely lovely but yeah you can't always just feel like that though so you don't have a terrible mood and somebody's coming up to you and they make you feel happy because most people don't come up and say horrid things they mostly say nice things they mostly say really sweet things and the things they love are they i mean obviously ab fab and things like that but they love the travel programs they feel like friends they feel i am a friend yes and that i love very much so they come up so you don't find it over familiar it's so nice quiet it's easier on my own it's less easy when i'm with a group of people or with my husband or family and things and people can carve their way through because you're the only one they recognize or want a selfie with and that can become but you must never be rude there's no point in being rude ever when you were cast as purdy did you appreciate that it would catapult you to such a level of fame no you're so anxious about paying the gas bill or something and i was so poor at the time and all after all they'd seen something like 270 women before they saw me and they said no i'm not sure you're going to be right and i did something i've never done before or since you'll be pleased here is that i put myself against the door like that and i said i shan't leave until you screen test me and they were like god this is a bit over the top all right we'll screen test her anyway they very kindly did and i was right for the part and i said i've got to cut my hair off it's got to be shorter so that was your idea oh yes and they said no no you can't have heroines as short hair i thought bad luck joan of arc but anyway i thought well jonah will i said i will cut it they said well you've got to have a wig prepared because we like people with nice long hair so i said okay but i'll cut the hair and i went to john frieda who's only a baby baby hairdresser and uh said can you cut my hair i know you do these nice shortcuts can you do it so he said he's very shy it was before he was married to lulu and he was very shy very beautiful boy and then there was another beautiful boy standing beside him holding kirby grips with red hair boy redder that was nikki clark so these two giants were the people who made the birdie cut and uh and luckily the producers liked it but also then that kind of propels you to sex symbol status i mean does a sex symbol ever feel she wasn't she wasn't and she wasn't a sex symbol the french who put the money in the british didn't want any more new avengers or avengers of any kind at all the french said no we love this show we think this show is very good indeed we should have it back we loved linda thorson she had great big bump she was wonderful to look at and then i was quite thin at the time this mangy little person arrived at the flat chest and short hair and they're like this is durable anyway they were stuck with it you asked a question now i'm asking because regardless of whether it was created by purdy or the bond girl role okay like two lines in do you remember those two lines in on her majesty's secret service i know what he's allergic to and then they gave me another one which was oh goody eggnog just like we have at christmas and i said but we don't have eggnog sorry i'm the english girl we don't have eggnog at christmas they said this is for an american audience you have eggnog at christmas but i don't remember any other lines no i've done but if you're one girl wild and coward i don't remember a single line but when you're a bond girl you kind of become a sex symbol and i've always worried and wondered whether people who are sex symbols realize it no but william i've been a model so i was a pretty girl nobody knew if i could do accents or anything what i was used to put is i was using somebody's girlfriend pretty and i'd wear nice clothes and stand pretty or lean or look lovely or just go i'm here you know you do that sort of stuff because that's what you were paid to do and you're trying to pay the rent people don't understand that acting is much you love it it's a job and you've got to earn money you must have done stuff in the past which is kind of not quite hack you're such a good writer but stuff that you kind of get what you have to work together uncovered of course you do you do that you do the best you can yes that's all it is it wasn't easy in the initially was it because you did a recent interview with my colleague bryony gordon yeah well you said you had a dreadful time when you had to pull yourself out of that theatrical production you were a single mother to jamie your son and you said you basically had a breakdown is that i had a burnout complete burnout i was being paid very little money i was working terribly hard i was trying to look after jamie because the au pair girl i'd got suddenly jumped ship so this was a very thing and my cousin was very very nearly dying and i was worried sick about her and i couldn't make it all i couldn't i couldn't do my life and i was doing this play eight shows a week and it was it was a nightmare and suddenly something snapped and i think it was rather like people who get um shell-shocked they they simply walk away it's not cowardice something in your head says well that's the end of that you don't have to do that you walk away you're not running from the guns i wasn't doing anything like i had no interest it was all over for me that was it i sat down the floor of my bedroom on a saturday morning the two shows ahead of me i thought well that's that so i've i've stopped that and i think i'd better go down to see my parents and when i rang them what do you do you've got two shows and i said no i'm not i'm not doing that anymore and then i went so i went down down down and down down down for about six months and uh i i'd i'd burnt i'd used up every bit i'd taken stuff out of my socks during i'd used everything and i couldn't do it because you can't but at the time you probably thought that was the end of the world i mean it was a brave move to have pulled out of that play no it wasn't no it was not a brave move i didn't do it voluntarily you're just forced to oh no i just snapped you just snapped like that you didn't pull out of anything i just got on a train and went away i didn't pull out of anything they said you have to go back and i said well i can't i can't i can't do anything i then couldn't go into shops i couldn't cross the road i couldn't do anything i'd stopped it the whole thing had stopped it just went stop like that stop you've stopped now there you are you stopped and did you ever have any episodes subsequently to that no because i can recognize them yes being in that scary place i thought well i'll never come back here again because the climb up and out of it is so appalling trying to teach myself how to go into a shop and not have a panic attack i mean teaching myself how to breathe in and breathe out when you can't breathe you know those things you just go just breathe in breathe out this is how you stay alive breathe in breathe out breathe in and when your mind is good and you just go lovely lovely glass i'm holding a glass i'm looking at the glass i'm counting the bubbles i'm holding a glove just training yourself not to spiral out and go insane but then i thought well i'm going to teach myself how to get back from these positions but i'll learn when they seem to approach but you so taught yourself you weren't you didn't have therapy no no i didn't well i didn't you did in those days no you didn't do it not that you were snooty about it a wasn't available but you didn't do it c i'm pleased that i've got it now i've tucked it into myself i can recognize any kind of doubt we all go up and down we've all got moods and sadnesses it's not depression and it wasn't depression it was a burnout yes and i've never had it since because i've taught myself to see when the petrol is being poured on the fire is there a moment when post purdue or whenever it might have been where you kind of think oh i've made it or no it's the insecurity of that i'm always with you no and not now that's why you get the day when you go oh my god they've gone mad yeah i haven't even gotten even started and so people ask even grand people like maggie smith and judy dench and eileen atkins and helen mirren they go and helen mirren i just saw appears by go you never think you're good enough you always think have i got away with it was that okay was any part of that intelligible to anybody you'd never think a few people do yes yes no they don't exist they don't they can't continue so you're saying that you continue with imposter syndrome even with as career as successful as yours being it's not so much impostor because you're there and you think well of course they've used me for this why not i mean i'm frightfully old and i was i played patsy so i get lots of rattled old telegraph readers i didn't say that don't you worry at all you said twins didn't you i think you did but talking about patsy then well let's talk about that moment because you're in shirley valentine i think it's about 1989. that was an afternoon's work was it yeah no showbiz is very odd yes and people say to me what was it like tom conte and pauline corons i go yeah it was great i always pretend i've met all these people i didn't i met pauline but tom was out in greece or something i didn't i know him but i hadn't worked with him i also did this when i did the voice of a thing called corpse bride with johnny depp and helena bottom carter and people say oh what was it like working with them as if we all sit in the studio dubbing our voices and i went oh that great so lovely having said i've never met them you did actually snug leonardo dicaprio yeah i did that yeah what was it like it was fantastic no he was still looking at so much peppermint because we knew we were going to have to do a kissy kissy but he was a completely darling man i was so afraid that he might be a bit hollywood bratish he was so brilliant he's i've admired him since he was a little boy i think he's a genius actor genius and handicapped i.e he only got an oscar when he wore a heavy beard nearly died in the woods being eaten by a bear or something yes and then hollywood finally gave him an oscar but his very first performance should have had nothing sensational i mean he was outstanding actor and i thought anybody that good must be a bit of a monster opposite darling darling sweet was it a proper snog with tongues of course not sorry i've forgotten the film the stills of it looked pretty intimate no they didn't we're sitting on a bench just a kiss he kisses me on the lips because he's a taken four thousand quaaludes and b he's trying to persuade me his wife's aunt to take suitcases of money to switzerland but then when you mention corpse bride and this film is there much differentiation between the likes of tim burton or martin scorsese well tim didn't turn up to the directing of that at all oh wow no no no i did meet him with hi and he'd fabulous creature of his own making with black clothes and wild black hair and kind of wandered in didn't seem to know what was going on it was incredibly sweet and went away again they that they said that was tim that's great now what you'll do joanne and so they i was then i dubbed my little bit it's it's quite technical all this it's not kind of schmoozing no but martian scorsese just every gold star i've got is pinned to that man's chest we shot the phil we shot the bit which is apparently me in london where leo's flown over to see me jordan belfort's floating up to see the aunt scorsese doesn't fly so he didn't want to do this which made a park in brooklyn look like london and they got a bobby on a bicycle two by two kind of thing somebody pushing somebody i seem to remember a scotty dog in a little checked coat somebody walking wrong so it looked a bit london-y that's sweet huh let's go back to patsy okay because what i was going to say is you kind of do shirley valentine and i don't know to be fair you never haven't worked you've always been really busy since since the new avengers yes after that but there was almost like a brief hiatus and then patsy came along just tell us how patsy came along and how you landed that role because it was transformative for your career really don't you think uh but i was i'd been doing stage plays which people always don't forget you know yes and i was in a stage play directed by harold pinto which is called vanilla and i was playing a great strange funny woman i cut my hair off that short and dyed it black and she was quite amusing it was a it was a flop the show show was a frog we had massive stars in it and it it failed after about three or four weeks but ruby ruby wax came to see it she loved it she came straight back so she you go to what she said you should work french and saunders but you've got to work with me first so i did three lovely ep see you know programs with ruby about it kind of parallel joanna lumley who was going insane and had no career which lots of people thought was true so that's why the president your first meeting did you know these ladies before no but ruby doesn't she just comes to your stage daughter just walked in right um she uh she just i just love her with all my heart completely and did from that second always thought admired her anyway so i worked with her on that and then i got sent a script which i thought was the best thing i'd ever read it was so funny i thought they can't ever make this this is so funny and it was jennifer saunders first episode of absolutely fabulous none of the characters were described perhaps he was just a person sitting in a taxi saying things saying things i looked at it and i did a read through with jennifer who i'd never met who was fairly sort of monosyllabic and i thought she hates us she's not enjoying it i didn't know what to be and i was just saying we'll turn left we'll go to harvey nix in this kind of a person because i didn't know who the person was it didn't say yes so how did patsy become patsy then well i had to try to make jennifer laugh because she didn't wouldn't seem to be enjoying anything very much so i just sort of i began to i thought i know patsy will always wear her hair up i just want to do that she will always wear a red lipstick she'll always be immaculate i just began to get her and i thought she's she's got like this because she said something down to her bottom she's probably had all her insides taken out through her bottle she's been she's been hammering it for quite a long time and once i'd got that sort of feeling of her and then i thought she's cross i remember thinking of um richard e grant and with now and i who was always cross and i thought oh that's very funny it's quite funny when people are always crossed so patsy is always pretty sullen she doesn't like to laugh but when she did she used elvis's love i loved patsy oh does she feel like she's like a sister or something no she feels she's repellent no but we get them out of the boxes every night and every time i'm with jennifer every time we're together we just start laughing and laughing and laughing and we always imagine what would happen if it was patsy and adina we always do even though they've gone and i don't think they'll come back because she went right anymore no look i cut my fringe and it seems to be getting longer as i talk to you because yourself yeah i do quite late no well it was parted before and i looked so tragic and i thought oh camilla will want a bit of a daunting actually the telegraph readers want to talk a bit daunting but no it seems to be settling it around my eyes i'm sorry can i ask something you are quite self-sufficient you do your own hair you're cutting your own fringe you do your own makeup are you low maintenance i am low maintenance but also it's quite useful for whenever i'm away on long trips secondly i don't have very much time to go and get your hair done look all the supermarkets have got things going and pictures of gorgeous women with lovely flowing golden hair and you go i have some of that put that on that'll go that'll make the hair yellow you've got sharp scissors you buy them in boots the chemists and you can cut your hair it's not it's not rocket science okay it's not very nicely cut but it's cut it looks great it's like in flavor actually on the topic of kind of self-care you look at patsy and she's probably like one of the most narcissistic characters in recent memory and i wondered whether you had an opinion on today's slightly self-absorbed sort of selfie generation oh well look you know itself is funny and people seem to do it all the time it's much worse than that people have now got used to looking in and just trying to find trying to find themselves and just looking this way lies i promise you lies unhappiness i promise you you've got to look out the world is packed with glories and it's just it's books and paintings but more than that it's nature and leaves it's people and things and stuff everything you see is gorgeous so don't keep on looking at i've known myself all my life i'm about as shallow as a puddle there's nothing more to look at yeah well i've seen that so there's no need for me to look inside there's nobody's there anyway because all my eyes are on stalks looking outwards and that's why i'm as happy as anything the more you look into yourself the unhappier you will be telegraph readers you know that anyway but i promise you and we've got to pass it on to our young stop looking inwards i don't think they're getting the message though joanna are they i mean yes they will they're going to get bored with all this selfie business do you think and i was also going to ask you as a former alumni of lucy clayton you're obviously renowned i think for kind of minding your p's and q's bar the odds swear bomb sorry in videos but do you think that we're as well-mannered as we used to be no we're not even as well managed as the americans we're terribly polite always say please and thank you and sir and things like this are terrifically polite we've become a little bit yobish but i think we always worse what is it somebody said the british are drunk and yobs with the odd flash of genius well i was going to quote you from an interview you gave to parkinson circa 2007 yeah which i think was around kind of ladette culture yeah and you say i have to say i adore our young ones and i think we have got some of the prettiest and loveliest girls in the world but i think sometimes their behavior gets a bit bad and i think girls let themselves down they are so pretty and lovely but they should behave better i think then they would be more successful do you agree with that still not successful at what i didn't know i didn't know what she was rambling on about she was just probably trying to fill up space but i do think i just think everybody should try to be nice i really do it sounds so old-fashioned but try to be civil to people try to be kind kindness is everything kindness is my religion nature and kindness is my religion um and and that seems to be good if you're kind even quite frightening people or quite horrible people it has a good result it has a good result if it's genuine kindness and of course the travels that i do all around the world to countries where i have no way of being able to speak their language or understand all their customs whatever they can tell if you come with affection and admiration and courtesy and respect respect they can sense that and then people are warm and kind back again but if you're dismissive or sulky or sullen or looking inwards it doesn't really work so force yourself to be nice now this doesn't mean say you're going to turn into a goody goody or a pollyanna or whatever it is immediately overnight but uh it does mean it does help a bit we've all got to keep on trying it's like marriages it's like friendships it's like jobs you do it's like cooking yet again finding stuff of the table you must put energy and kindness and thought into it don't expect it to come and just be that you've got to discipline yourself into doing it i'm quite disciplined i'm quite disciplined are you yeah what would be like an average routine do you somebody that tries to fill your days i mean because your career is so varied really you know acting to the traveling yeah so are you kind of somebody who never has a dull moment and doesn't like to rest on her which sounds like high synth bouquet doesn't it i just mean are you are you restless if you have not got much to do no i just lie on a bed and read a book but i but i do have a lot to do and sometimes i like doing prep at school you can i'll do that tomorrow i'll do that tomorrow i'll do i've got five i've got three hours to do look i've got half an hour to do that you know yeah and i've got to write a thousand words because i write occasionally like you write lots but i when it comes to i go oh i can do that tomorrow i'll get up at four you know you do all this sort of rubbish so but i do like to to do things and to get things done and sometimes that's another part of when you're feeling very down or you can feel things make a list even if it's things like tidy the tabletop put it on a list and take it off the sense a small sense of achievement boasts as you makes you feel stronger do you know what you should be doing another book like lumley's rules of life can you imagine life would you love me can you imagine me then on a book tour and people are just going oh no i can't bear it again let's talk about some of your activism as well because kind of you're obviously closely associated with the gurkha campaign i remember first interviewing you for born free i told you earlier i won't forget it because you kissed our photographer on the lips which was the greatest day of his life just to say he still talks about it today um so there's born free there's like lifelong vegetarianism you've supported the green party in the past your politics are a bit difficult to pin down well i didn't really have any that's why i like independence i thought we had ought to have a green mp in parliament just one at least i thought it was disgraceful that our country lagged so far behind germany for instance and i think caroline lucas who i knew anyway from animal friendly things because she's very green herself as you know yes and so i sent her a thousand pounds when she was going to when she was canvassing to help her get into into parliament which she did i hope she said thank you of course she did she's immaculate yes no she's a very she's a terrific politician she's terrific but i don't i mean some all the parties have got good ideas i've got some very very few communist ideas and a few slightly right of genghis khan you know i don't know what to say you know i think it's very very political every woman but the activism for instance for the gurkhas that's just what's right you've got to do what's right you've got to be on the side of right it doesn't matter what other people think if you know something in your heart to be very wrong you must stand up and do something about it that's why for instance compassion and world farming um and the treatment of refugees and things like this is catastrophic you can't just sit by and say well i like eating my bacon so i don't really care what happens to the pigs you know i i like this so i don't i don't care i'll just shut my eyes to that i think we overfished the ocean so i gave up eating fish completely um but lots of people go oh i wouldn't do that you kind of go well just see just be just be aware that every action has a reaction and if we send out trawlers so we can get cheap fish and they kill half the fish that come up and throw them back dead into the waters which contaminate the waters and also destroy the fish stock and if they scrape the seabeds trying to grab things up and ruin the seabeds if we do all these things don't you understand that there's a something's going to go badly wrong and it all sounds a bit woo to say this but i think we're reaping the horrors that we've sown our indifference to this natural world is so catastrophic that now look what's happening the world is burning flooding exploding and we'll go my god what about the flood defenses and you go we've done this we've done this we've made prairies so that all the sand blows off we've cut down all the trees we've polluted the rivers killed the fish i mean it sounds horrible but david attenborough who doesn't ever he doesn't moan he tries to lure you out of your stupidity and try to show you what the glories of the world are and half the world just couldn't give a damn if it wants a plastic bottle of water it'll have it chuck it in the bush having said that your grandchildren's generation are much more conscious of these issues than even mine was and yours i know which is positive just to be a bit more hopeful no no i am hopeful because i know that the young will do it and i know that we have it in our power to do it um but we mustn't people you know here we are dealing with a pandemic which affects people but we are people are a pandemic are you happy that these restrictions have been lifted are you a kind of ardent mask wearer are you just i can't wait to get rid of any of these measures i can't wait because i think we're inoculated now enough um and and if you are anxious for goodness sake take and wear a mask if i remember all those years ago when japanese used to visit our country they'd wear masks were they wearing masks maybe it was for the pollution of the city we didn't know but we'd look at them gas strange they're wearing masks people who feel happier to wear a mask wear it people who are anxious of going into a crowded place don't go to that crowded place otherwise i want to see theaters crammed with people because we can all it seems resist this new variant and until if a very much worse one comes along we'll deal with that when it does but this one is mild and we must accommodate it and deal with it and have it like cold or if it's flu then stay in bed and if it's a cold just blow your nose and be civil you know but i want theaters crammed well let's talk about your love of the arts because you're also going to mention about the grange park opera i adore it tell us about what it is for the uninitiated because by the way subscribers you're going to get early dibs on tickets to this year's performances and you're going to get them before anybody else so i think you've got up to march the eighth to book in yeah but hurry hurry while stocks lost i mean really do hurry hurry this is grange park opera is the most extraordinary thing it was started by a woman who is extraordinary in herself was fikany the only person i think in the world who's ever built two opera houses anyway the first opera house which was done at the in grange park in down in hampshire the lease ran out of that and we were hunting for a new home at exactly that time this fairy story happened where bamba gascoigne already a hero i mean literally my heart i'm already starting to stammer thinking of him i love him so much who's now recently died but has left behind a legacy he was suddenly inherited at the age of i think about 81 from a a great an aunt who has happened to be a duchess so this is all part of the fairy story vast and fabulous but pretty crumbling house just off just in surrey just off the m25 the other side beautiful place west torsley park um and he and christina i mean i love them both so much i can hardly speak without just literally throwing my arms around them had this huge place where we went along and said do you think it might be possible to build an opera house and i'm saying we because i'm on the board of grangebook opera to build a little opera house pretty much like la scala milan a little bit smaller in the grounds now anybody sensible or anybody dull or anybody boring would have gone well i don't know so bamba and christina went what a wonderful idea what a wonderful idea so through this magical place and it's everything that roger kipling would have written about to be at west hallsday park in the summer is already a dream even if there was no opera there just to be allowed to walk in the gardens would be a dream because it's got ancient part airs and gardens it's got crinkle cranker walls which are built like this so that the trees planted there would ripen before the trees that were planted there would be peach trees and things which were espaliered along the walls old old ancient woods and spin it just magic a magic place and suddenly in 11 months osficani raised 10 million pounds and in 11 months built an opera house so the whole thing is is fantastic now into this comes just you know the heavyweights the world brinshaffel simon keenly side joseph kelleher for instance is singing there this year amazing book now avoid disappointment because it is just and you can take a picnic you can dress how you want all this school you've got to do this you don't have to do a thing yes everybody wants to dress up and everybody wants to have a picnic but i'm married to a conductor yes simpa slightly because he's conducting he always conducts grange park opera and he's conducting a beautiful opera this year called la joconda but quite often stephen because he's conducting it doesn't want to have a huge sit-down thing so sometimes i just take him sandwiches so if you want you can just take sandwiches and you can just sit on a wall and eat some sandwiches which is what we do or sometimes we have spreads and people put out groaning things and trays and trestles and bottles of wine and champagne and there's champagne tents and little gazebos little indian tents around and you go just to be here is the very business and then you've got the operas as well i've got fed we've got artello yes you've got all of it we've got we've got we've got the flying dutchman this year perfect yeah i'm imagining like the lumley household the barlow household kind of like alive with music is there music on the whole time i bet you don't get to listen to what you want to if you're married to a conductor no but he's conductors have this quite irritating thing of reading in full scores in silence what because they can read they can hear it in their heads and so they've got the whole thing all the instruments and all the singers like that and this huge thing like this and they just go and occasionally sound just goes and i'm not allowed to speak or talk or play music but anyway luckily we've got such a huge house that we've a good music room at the end of the garden so he can be my music i can be up here because i want to quote some another quote back at you you've been married since 1986 and i found this intriguing yeah that you said that you'd commented in the past that you live independent lives and when you are away from each other for work you do not ring each other it's the secret to a successful marriage some independence i think well also when you're far far away quite often the time is different and there's nothing more irritating than being rung up at breakfast by somebody going hi are you okay you don't want that somebody and the other thing is is that when you are like that yourself you don't want to try to sound sober from across the world and making it sounds everyone drinks a lot on youtube do you drink a lot a great deal no no sometimes sometimes anyway you're always out of kilter and also phones are rather bad much nicer they've got a lovely little email it's like a love letter lovely and it pings up and you can read it and reread it and sometimes you can attach a photograph you've taken have you ever been as drunk as patsy no i can't stand being drunk i like drinking but i i've got i've i've got the constitution of an ox i can drink people under the table how many gins would you have before you start making no sense at all i've never not made any sense at all is ginger two or three bottles no i don't know i don't drink a lot of cuz i don't like what's your tipple though what's your favorite i love gin and tonic but i love champagne naturally anybody sensible likes a glass of champagne because that can't even be considered a drink don't you have to start gargling honey and lebanon things to preserve your voice this famous voice no i smoke cigarettes yeah that's really surprised me very good most quite a lot of singers do a lot of dances do a lot of actors do doesn't your agent leo it was leo a smoker leo he was taught to smoke by i think um robin robert de niro when he was very small for a part and he then couldn't stop and became addicted so when i was working with him he'd stop smoking but he kept in his pocket a vape oh and he would vape about 50 puffs between everything so he was just walking about in a cloud of smoke and i speak medical cigarettes like that and then we both had peppermints have you never considered vaping no no i like smoking fair enough i don't smoke an awful lot or drink an awful lot but i like talking about these things yes well i'm glad you have no i'm not a very good cook i'm looking at the clock here okay we must bring in the punters oh punters punters want to ask you lots of great questions so can i fire somehow we'll try and be quite rapid because there's no quicker yeah 20 minutes left yeah okay amy french if you could be queen for a day what would you do oh amy i would i would have an edict it should go through it once because i'd be queen which would be to stop factory farming very good too that's not actually that surprising that's an actually a very noble aim isn't it it would be quite exciting wouldn't it how did joanna come to love opera well i loved classical music and that's from sorry oh it's anonymous put your names on these don't be shy oh no i like anonymous i probably sent it to myself no the truth is this is that i always listen to classical music i was brought up on classical music i was listening to mozart before my husband was born but when i married stephen and i didn't know much about opera opera came into my life because he does principally operas he does everything he plays piano and composes but he operates conducts opera and he taught me so much about it and i loved it i came i fell in love with it and then a lot of people i admire a lot like jonathan miller and people like this barry humphries giants told me they loved opera and you think this is and people say it is kind of when when it's as good when it's good it's as good as can be as a human experience are you musical do you play any instruments no no i used to play the piano by ear but then you married stephen you don't yes no you can't no um what do you consider your greatest achievement in life so far asks pam that's a hard question fam pam nothing you never you never go oh that's good i've done that you never do that the the nearest i get to this palm is just occasionally reading something i've written 10 12 years ago okay well this is this wasn't this it's not too bad it's not too bad not huge and i'm proud none of that but just that wasn't too bad but is there a play tv show or film that you particularly have just the fondest memories no wood ab fab and patsy was one of the fondest memories mainly because we were so so disgusting and so funny and my favorite bit was when patsy and eddie were very very old and um patsy had lost her mind and they'd been around to see saffin they were drooling they had we have prosthetic makeup it took four hours to put on so we had bald caps under our faces we had jowls and things like this we had little dodgers humps and little saggy titties hanging down like this and scraggy little arms and patsy was clawing through the garden she lost her marble so instead of being pants it was a sullen she loved everything so she was looking at things like this she sniffed a flower and a bee went up her nose and straight down her throat because she got nothing inside her head because she snorted all the way with stuff and she splashed out and went and then she coughed and her pants fell off well that's for me paradise is there anything you've worked on that you absolutely hated just from beginning to end yes some things that you mustn't ever allow yourself to hate things steadfastly because you've got to redeem yourself you've got to be kind and nice and flourish and fly above it and also not let it drag you down but there are sometimes sometimes there's the old person i would never tell you who it is and luckily i raised bad people from my mind but they've been they've been the odd absolute beasts to work with oh please tell us no what are any of them dead and then we can't save them most of them have been died by these very hands i've killed them no most of them are dead or gone oh i can't remember who they are but you just go i'm hating every day i have to come in because i've got to see you again i know there will be people out there who have this you've got to work your way around it manage it somehow but mark them down and don't don't go there again did you have to deal with lots of lecherous men as a model or as an actress yes yes casting cat what any moments of no because you're actually you could smart in those days if somebody began doing that give the hand a slap give him a push say no stand up for yourself don't let it happen now it seems to be much worse now i don't know why i seem seem to feel that people are more vulnerable now but i think we were quite a feisty lot you know give somebody a slap angela asks how do you keep fit angela i don't know do i i run about our house is tall and thin so you run up and downstairs a bit i'm not actually not fit this and look when i've got to do something i try to do it but otherwise i like to walk about briskly um do you have a doggie or anything any pets no you've got two cats oh so you don't really do go running or anything no no no no no no no no i've got people to do running for me jonathan asks will you ever be doing another sitcom at all i don't know i think sitcoms are really hard i think also i thought abfab was fabulous it was 30 minutes long on the bbc and it went i don't know how many series it ran to episodes because jennifer was very sporadic about writing it she'd write it sometimes leave it sometimes i didn't think i'd be in another sitcom i can't think oh this is with jennifer jill asks hello joanna have you any plans to visit the okavango delta in botswana if you have not already been it's one of the most special places on earth and i'd love to see it again through your eyes are you going to do more travel shows yes i am and are you going next can you tell us yes i think so at the end of this year we're due to go on something that's been cancelled twice which is following the spice route from the bandar islands which are just near new guinea all across indonesia across to singapore then down to sri lanka then down to mauritius down to zanzibar up through the red sea jordan and then to egypt how long will that take september to christmas wow yeah big but we do it in four chunks because you can't do it all in all in one go and it's for me magic this is music to my ears because i've just done three episodes of something which is thrilling which is great cities paris rome and berlin which are just about to come out in march which i adored um and fascinating and i think they're darling programs but i've behind me i've got a ever a knapsack and in front of me a white road winding you know and and when you're filming these things how many kind of luxuries and home comforts are there for a star like you or how often are you actually having to summon well not not not star because there's only really six of us traveling six and me so it's we do everything so we help with whatever um depending on where we are sometimes you're in a tent in which case i always do my own makeup and hair i have to provide my own clothes and see if they're in order and um do that side of it uh mug up on what which there's no starring us about it i couldn't bear it no i actually can't bear these can i just say something to people at home sections are all very well but they have a way of making frantically uncomfortable you move those cushions do you know sometimes they rack them up and you go what what are all these questions well they throw them all on the ground doesn't your husband say that about cushions generally what's the point in them he doesn't notice a cushion he's not musical so um oh that was a question as well what what do you prefer sort of the travel shows and the documentary i love those i love those actually or the acting i mean is it hard learning script no acting is heaven acting good stuff is heaven first thing you've got to do is look at the script no good film has been made without a good script so that's the first thing so writers who ought to be at the top of everything are always sort of shuffled away and people can't remember who wrote things jennifer saunders wrote absolutely fabulous brilliant then you want a good director and you want good co-actors once they're good co-actors you're flying you're flying but stephen said this about con conducting good orchestras he said sometimes when it takes off you're flying you literally something happens it's called making music and it flies it's flying and it's thrilling um so that's what you want um somebody's asking yeah do you have a favorite destination oh it's hard i fall in love like a like a flighty girl with every last place you've been to and so from the northern lights to japan to mongolia to uzbekistan where i lost my heart kyrgyzstan and saw the most extraordinary sort of edges going into towards china and these great tashra bat a weird place where nobody's ever counted how many weird little cell rooms it's got because it's haunted and it's either 32 or 31 nobody's ever found out the right number of rooms no this is the stuff this is the stuff for me anyway now i'm obviously going to fall in over the bander island yes fabulous this is an interesting question was your convent education and asset nuns lead shelters lives so were they good life tutors yes they were we i went to an anglican conference and there are only ever four in england i didn't there are any now and the nuns were what we would call blue stockings which doesn't mean they wore blue stockings but that they were brainy they were teaching nuns and so they taught the classic they talked greek and latin and french and chemistry and physics and biology they were brainy brainy nuns incredibly tolerant very sweet didn't try to make us into holy people failed were tolerant of me because i did languages in the latin things like this up to a level and so they didn't sack me for smoking although they did take away my prefix badge what kind of child were you at school were you an extrovert an introvert i've always been a show-off and and pretty unbearable i would have thought happy as a log unbearably happy and like laughing anthea and i my friend from school still a friend now to this day used to sit at the back of the class we used to cut out we used to cut around people's heads in photographs so you just got their ears and then you'd cut their eyebrows off around here they just had a face hanging off the bottom it sounds pathetic i can't remember laughing so much you have to put your head in your skirt and just cry i love those days but you boarded from quite a young age was that was age tolerable no boarding you never you never really i loved my second school i loved the convent i adored it i couldn't wait to go back i just loved it um because i was quite cheeky and it was so full of everything it had friends and it was a magic place i was eight when i first boarded in england and i'd only just come back from the far east and i think what i missed was the far east yes as well as my parents i was homesick for malaya which is where i just come from malaysia as it is now the laterite and there's white moon flowers at night and the sound of the top top bird and the smell of spices all that in a thin thin little english iron bed and didn't like it no it sounds dreadful life was fine and when you um didn't get into drama school and went to lucy clayton instead was that a massive i was so touched then i saw anthony cher didn't get into into rada most people didn't get into radha i mean the people who did went to dorado or they went to lambda went to central school or whatever no being the door slammed in your face there was a very um that it was just the time when a i didn't know i had an accent because i think i spoke rather like that did you a little bit like the queen actually could have done and um and i did a piece from joan of arc and i said oh darfur i am locked down this jail i think i did this and this is my audition piece and they turned me down i oh god this is awful i'm clearly wrong but i can't think if i go to somewhere else and they turn me down if four or five places turn me down i'll have to not be an actress and i'm going to be an actress so why don't i just not do it at all and just dodge my way through there's bound to at the back of the building be a window open and i'll get into it that way so i've done everything through the back door yeah just get in learn it and they go what have you done recently and you go oh i've done some films which haven't come out yet i'd lie i'd lie just make it just get there get there get in there fake it till you make it fake it till you make it watch learn cheat steal borrow from other people get make it do it yourself it isn't going to be handed to you you know that we all know that no we don't well most most of us do telegraph readers do of course they do on the elocution front did you then have to did you have any elocution lessons to now speak like this if you're high pitched in the old days no i've just smoked more and more and more right and gradually i've just look i've just gradually you realize that there's some you realize i think you just live and you get old um and you you just get older i don't know i think even when you hear my earlier voice i think i think we i think we all moderate our voices to how language is the queen of here then making that vow i vow to you know the rest of my life be it long or short that little voice is very different from the way the queen speaks now so her voices got lower and more open and rounded but i think she did have elocution well i didn't because i'm an actress and i'm a copycat so i can do whatever i have to what's your favorite accent to do oh i think i like very much to do french because because i knew some french people and i knew one who spoke exactly as i'm speaking now she'd taken some of the vowel sounds to heart and was very impressive um this is a nice one from um oh anonymous again put your names on it let's just say it's from fred silly question but i've always really wanted to know this were the cigarettes that were smoked on ab fab real or were they herbal or stage no they were real um and they would have boxes and boxes and boxes them around and you'd at during a shoot during a take you have to go back and then cigarette by that time has gone down to that so you have to get another cigarette which is that long again so there's a lot of lighting up of cigarettes and actually after shooting because we only did one show a week which was on friday evening i'd come i wouldn't smoke on saturday but then you know you you smoke again most farm and smoke did you know that how ironic isn't it odd i love bonfires too smoking stand in the smoke i love it it's popular than it used to be no but it's primeval we all used to live in caves and have a bonfire going we inhaled the smoke we're mostly made of smoke this is an interesting one from mike would joanna agree that the future of the monarchy is in safe hands with charles and camilla followed by william and kate i would say so i think prince charles has been the most remarkable prince of wales ever on record he was so ahead of it everything he did has been completely admirable from the setting up for the prince's trust which caught all the young and the and the dispossessed who had slipped through all the other people's nets never failing them giving them mentorship taking care of them to his husbandry of the earth and his and his passion for crafts weaving and carving and sewing and drawing and the fine arts and architecture and everything he's been quite extraordinary i think he's a remarkable man and the queen has trained him and said one of the things you know she said i've trained up a good man because he's going to be king and she knows what it's like to carry on that little shoulders all this all of this is going to come good or bad and people say oh but shouldn't they hop the thing it isn't a beauty contest it isn't a popularity contest it's the monarchy until we get rid of it we've got it do we follow what it does shouldn't the queen retire no she won't retire she's made a vow wake up people she's made the fire yes i agree with you entirely i think talk of abdications just for the birds you just look at the timer one minute fifteen quick one looks my friends um mary who was your first celebrity crush dirk bogard i thought i looked like him [Laughter] and i'm trying to find a very quick one before i lost this next one um we've done that we've done that okay this is the best one i think to end on if i can now bloody well find it when you look back on your life what is the most important value or thing you learnt and the least important the least important is sort of what you look like yes the most important is being kind that's all and that comes from the dalai lama who i admire hugely and who i've met who never stops laughing he's incredibly kind and he just said all religion is kindness that's all it is kindness is religion religion is kindness and that's all that's the end of it that'll see you through right on that bombshell i think we should end it there because that's such a positive note you're such a glass-half-full joyous woman to be with honestly i've really enjoyed this last hour thank you thank you so much for your time so much thank you to telegraph subscribers for subscribing to the newspaper continuing to read and support us and also to accessing these brilliant telegraph extra events because they're kind of like the cherry and the cream on top of what we offer at the telegraph let me just do a little bit of housekeeping to end so if you weren't fast enough i think we gave a hundred books away to subscribers that wanted one of your books for free however they are available at awkward retailers and of course the telegraph bookshop i needed to say that please do also keep an eye on telegraph extra the website which will give you information on all of the future events that we're doing and don't forget as well that you're going to get priority access to the grange park operas amazing summer schedule of events and as joanna said that's brilliant and i think you've got until march the 8th to book those tickets with priority over the rest of the country so that's not a bad thing thank you very much today and joanna lumley for joining me thank you to you for joining me and have a very lovely evening

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Length: 60min 0sec (3600 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 24 2022