Second Helpings - Joanna Lumley

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1:05Hello and welcome to Second Helpings. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with my mum, Lenny. And we are offering up a wonderful guest from way back when. This week on Second Helpings we have Dane Joanna Lumley. Oh my goodness. This was a great one. This was, it was like being with royalty. She was the most gracious woman, the most exciting woman, the most self-effacing but most gorgeous looking woman I've ever met. We recorded it in Clapham back in March 2022. It was season 13. And it was vegetarian, I remember. I had to record the first part of the interview because producer Alice was stuck in terrible traffic.

1:47Oh, yes. And I thought, I can see where this is going to go and it's going to go sideways. It went all right, darling. It went all right. Joanna was fantastic. If your singing career goes down the tube. Produce, yeah. Produce podcast. Joanna's a vegetarian, so Lenny had to try out a new recipe. Do you remember what you did? I think it was my friend Anne's deep pan pizza with pine nuts. But I don't think it stayed together very well. It fell apart a bit. It was a vegetable pie, and for dessert, you did roasted plums. And at the time, Joanna actually had a new show out. It was called Cities of the World.

2:20Basically, it was her having a jolly good time in the great cities of Rome, Paris and Berlin. Fellow South Londoner too. Yeah. Here she is, Jane Joanna Lumley on Second Helping.

2:40You still drink poly? I do. Oh, gosh! By golly, I do. Well, that's how we shall begin. This is divine. Oh, you're so sweet. You don't live too far away. No. Traffic was weirdly heavy tonight, but I live in Stockwell, so that's really close. Really close by. Cheers. Cheers, darling. South London. Thrilled, thrilled. How are you? How am I? Yeah, how are you? I'm just fine. I've worked all the way through here, because I've worked all the way through. But my husband's a musician, Jessie. Oh, is he? He's a conductor, he's a composer, he's a pianist. rubbish for them right or not everything went bang shut because all this is performing art so he did a lot of composing finishing bits he'd started and putting himself to it and just slogging on you know because a lot of music is slog as you know yeah doing it in our profession we have a saying which is stay in the boat don't just suddenly go oh this is really hard hang on in there we're bumping over waters but hang on be it stay in the boat and then guess what the The water will come calmer and we'll still be there.

3:46What you're not to do is to disappear. Have you had bumpy waters? Not now, but early, early days. Early days. Bumpy, bumpy. Did you grow up in England? Or were you... Eventually, eventually. I was born in India. My father was with the Gurkhas. Yes. And my mother was the daughter of a diplomat who was out in India and who had Tibet and Bhutan and Sikkim and had been before in Persia as it was, Iran as it is now. and everybody was born in, he was born in Gazipur and my father was born in Lahore and I was born in Kashmir and my sister was born in Abitavar. So we were all born over there. And then the regiment moved, India came, had its independence.

4:29We moved off to Hong Kong and then we moved from Hong Kong to Malaysia and lived there. So I came back to England when I was eight and now England's my home. But before then, because my parents had both been brought up in India, we didn't have a home here. we didn't so although england was called home it wasn't we didn't have a home you know we didn't know where we came from did you feel do you still feel a strong connection with india yeah well india and but i've been many times and this and the and the sort of tropics of the of the far east the smell of i don't know wet laterite earth after rain and the sound of jungle birds and things and the dark, dark skies and great thunderstorms.

5:11Those are the things I, when there's a thunderstorm, I open all the windows and hope for lightning. Can you remember your first food memory? I presume it must be a... It would have been far east. It would have been with the Armours in Hong Kong. And it would have always had rice and ginger and garlic and probably soy sauce. And that still is my comfort food. Is it? Is it? Do you add anything to it? Do you have any little extra? I mean, sometimes it's really nice. I do something like, I mean, put sunflower seeds onto it to give it a little bit of a crunch or a crunch. Sometimes you can, sometimes Ah Feng, one of our beloved cooks, Ah is the kind of ornery.

5:53People say, oh, you mustn't call it, it's really insulting. But Ah was Mrs. So it's like saying Mrs. Feng. She used to make that rice, but then at the very last minute, she'd crack an egg through the rice, fry rice, do it like that, and then at the end, shred lettuce. And just as it wilted, it would be tumbled and put on your plate. It's called chow fan. I adore it. Oh, that sounds great. And what was the seasoning? The seasoning was ginger, garlic, soy sauce. And that was just always... And anything, chillies or whatever, I mean anything. Far easterny seasoning. Can you take a lot of heat then, do you think?

6:27Or are you not into heat? Some, some. I once took a mouthful of green chillies. The hot, hot, hot green chillies, thinking they were green beans. I was on a trek through Bhutan. And we came, and I'd been, vegetarians get pretty slim pickings on these feasts, you know. And so I saw what I thought was a dish of green beans, and I put a whole crunch to hold off my mouth, and I was completely silent for about 20 minutes, which was a relief to everybody. And my eyes were streaming, and I couldn't speak. And I felt as though my ears would explode, it was so hot. Oh, no. Did they not offer you any yoghurt or milk?

7:01No, they were just like, suck it up, Joanna. They didn't, because it was one of those buffets where you help yourself. It was my fault. Did you cook a lot of egg fried rice in the pandemic? We ate so much and we got so fat. I know. We just stuffed up. We thought... Everyone got boxes delivered, didn't they? Wonderful things. I can't tell you anything. And my husband's a good cook. Musicians often are cooks. Did you know that? Well, did you watch Pretend It's a City, the Fran Leibovitz thing on Netflix? No, I didn't. So good. So good. And she says that she's kind of, her two favourite people are chefs and musicians because of the creative, she's obsessed with them.

7:41And she says there's lots to, yeah, they're quite alike. I'd like to say, yeah, we're just, you know. You're a good cook. You're a good cook. I think, I wonder if it's something to do with, I don't know, something musical, food is musical. Maybe food is a bit musical. And maybe you've got to have music in your soul to be a good cook. I love that. I don't think I have got music in my soul, darling. Well, you gave it to me with Dusty and Aretha, Manhattan Transfer. So your husband's a good chef. So what was he cooking? What was the kind of go-to? Or what we could get. Because at the time, do you remember all the queuing in the mornings and wearing masks and looking on empty shelves and things?

8:23But we're quite good. Because I'm a vegetarian and he isn't, we could have a real variety of things. And so sometimes he'd cook something for himself or whatever. but he he's we're both i would have thought simple so any recipe that takes six hours i wouldn't do no i'm too lazy also i can't imagine many vegetarian dishes take six hours apart like that's a slow cook you know lamb too slow exactly so slow cooked lamb and things like that he loves have you been a vegetarian for a long time for ages time about easily 40 years maybe 45 years what made you become suddenly thought you know how you suddenly think maybe you'd give up smoking or drinking or something okay and i suddenly thought i'm not going to do this no i'm not going to eat meat or fish no more finished gone but i'm not a vegan and people say that's the next step but i think it's i think it's hard without cheese and dairy i mean it used to be so difficult to be a vegetarian no it isn't no and always traveling in the middle and far east it's never difficult because they never expect you to have to stuff yourself with meat all the time they'll have meat but usually those sort of picking foods and indian foods and far eastern foods a lot of them a lot of the of the cuisine of the of poor countries is the food i love best and it's because it doesn't depend on meat if you think they've always got a basis like initially it might be pasta or pizza base so hitting the mic and then there's rice and then there's all these different things which are the bases and only if you're very rich do you get some meat or fish onto it the rest of the time they do clever things with beautiful vegetables and spices and herbs and in the end you don't miss anything so i mean we we've got you over for dinner mum has cooked a vegetarian uh meal mum gets very terrified about cooking vegetarian meals because she's such a she's such a meat eater yeah so she's terrified yes yeah and so i've had to hold her hand well for the time that I was here.

10:21I love you for doing this. But do you find that people struggle to know what to cook? Do you feel like they kind of over-fuss when you go for dinner? And I sometimes say, I'll eat everything except the meat bits. If there are potatoes and greens or stuff or a salad, that's fine. Do you quite like it when someone makes the effort, though? It's so charming. And people more and more are finding how interesting it is cooking. Non-meat meals, what they call plant-based meals. You can get some good stuff. So which ones are your recipe books that you go to? I don't read recipe books. Don't you? No. Why not?

10:55I don't know. No, it's just, I think they're lovely. I love them. I find them quite meditative. I think they're very inspiring too. Yeah. So where do you get your inspiration? Well, I'm so dull as a cook. I'm a dull cook. Are you? Yeah, I think I am. I mean, they're full of spices and people tuck into them and go yum, yum, yum. But the truth is that I didn't do anything very clever. But that's because you're not reading bloody recipe books, Joanna. I know, but recipe books will always say marinate for seven days with one sprig of something, you know, and I won't do that, you know. I feel as if I needed marinating for seven days.

11:26Oh, please. I like the idea, Jess, of having some skills which will take you through, if you know what I mean. Know how to make a white sauce, know how to make something or an omelette, know the basics. And then from that, you can push, push, push, push, push, push and extend it. Then you think of different tastes and flavours you'd like. I love soup. I think soup is a... Oh, I love soup too. And I think the old kind of housewife, French housewife's way of making soup, having a pot and chucking stuff into it, is good. You've just got this new travel programme. Yeah. And you ate in that. You must have eaten really well.

12:05I never... I mean, also, they always make me eat. On the film, they say, and here, Diana, you'll be going over and helping cook and then eat some of the stuff. It's a hardship for me, but this is why I'm not as svelte as I would have been. So I have, in the three programmes, which are about Berlin, Paris and Rome, I think Rome is the first one going out, I was with people who cooked. So for instance, in Rome, which goes out first, I met one of the Italian pizza chefs who's a kind of whiz, he's a star. A, he looks like Brando. He's got the temperament of Gordon Ramsay and he's a brilliant chef.

12:41And he makes these pizza bases which he puts almost anything. He puts things like chicory and honey and nuts and chickpea sauce on. I can't tell you. And you go, really? And then you eat and you go, this is out of this world. So he's very daring. And I said to him, you know, a lot of people are purists about what you can put on pizza. And I said to him, what do you think? Some people put pineapple and things like that on pizza. What do you think of that? He said, I don't care. He said, if they want it, they shall have it. pizza is for everybody, they should eat everything they want. So that was rather heartening.

13:17So we could put whatever we want. I do like a pineapple on my pizza. Yeah, I do. I'm sorry, I know it's like... It's not, because he said it's not, and he's a Roman chef, so he doesn't... Fine. But how was it, filming that? I mean, it must have been lovely to get out of bloody London. The crew, oh, well, it was divine. Filming that actual sequence, the crew were literally drooling. So in the end, I had to say, I'm sorry, are the crew allowed to eat some of this? And they just fell like wolves. but getting out of London I had been filming during the lockdown because I'd done a programme called Home Sweet Home three episodes about England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales looking at all the beautiful places we've got here even if it is lockdown even if you can't go away and you've got to have a staycation look there's heavenly stuff and darling people and great food and interesting beautiful things to see but going abroad was great It's sort of magic.

14:10You felt like you were alive. It's sort of, you feel you're living again. I know, I don't know what it was. It hasn't. I don't know, the sense that our lives were ended and we'd become little institutionalised people. Even if it was a happy prison, we were in a prison. Yeah. So, Joanna, the podcast, I feel like you kind of get the gist. I do, I do. I mean, everyone's going to love having you in their ears. We ask every guest what their last supper would be. So it's a starter, main, purd, drink of choice. You can think about this. you can mull it over, we've got time to come back to it have a little think, don't feel pressured and it could be a last supper before you go on a desert island for a year or it can be Goodnight Nurse

14:53but if it was the very last supper you'd have to be in pretty good form you mustn't be all croaking away with the old teeth so let's say you're healthy just before I'm going away remember I've been on a desert island have you? I was cast away I was cast away ages ago, it was before any of these cast away hold on, are we talking pre it was in about 1993 before the cast away before the island before Love Island it was called Girl Friday I had some knives some sacking they gave me a pound of rice for nine days and that's all and that was it What did you do? Pretty much staffed. Did they help? They said over the island, it was a desert island, so there's nobody on it.

15:45There's no garlic or ginger? No garlic, there's nothing on it except limes. And I became addicted to limes because with my little bit of rice, my tiny shell, I had no knives and forks and spoons, no toothbrush, no mirror, no comb, no soap, nothing. I had nothing, I lived like an animal. Why did you do it? Because I thought it would be quite fun. I was doing patsy at the same time. Oh, quite, so it was a good old contrast. It was a good one. Lovely contrast. Are you glad you did it? Yes. You survived. I had rice. That was good. Oh, and did you have to make the rice? Yes, but I had to. Did you have to do like flint?

16:16What's it? You know, when you strike up. Did you have to do all that stuff? Flint. And we'd had a late monsoon, so the wood was wet. So it took forever to get a little fire going. Did you cry? No, I didn't cry, but it was... You're dedicated only to making fire, collecting wood. Your horizon go like this. But at the same time, all my senses changed. I could sense when the rain was coming, literally when the rain was going to come. I could sense when the tide was turning, when it stopped coming in and was going to go out again. I saw baby turtles hatching on the beach. I saw shooting stars. I saw flying foxes.

16:51I was on my own. What are flying foxes? And they came on every day. Flying foxes are fruit bats. Here's your girl. Here's my girl. And now you're, well, you're already sounding fantastic. But the good thing was, this is the interesting thing, is that when you go without food for a long time, you begin to think, what... Because then, first of all, three days you're hungry. To hallucinate. No, three days you're hungry, and then you're not hungry at all. You lose your appetite. Yeah, I can imagine. And what I longed for was crunchy things. So I remain addicted to lettuce. Lettuce. Lettuce, and anything that goes crunch.

17:23So celery, apples, things that go crunch. That you could get your teeth into. Crunch, crunch, and green. Hello! God, how lovely to see you. Poor Alice! She's here. It's a nightmare. Nearly three hours. Where have you come from? Hackney. It's a nightmare. I've got gridlocked on Tower Bridge. I've done this before, you know. I did this when I was doing a play. Really? I'd gone to see Sunset Boulevard. Who was starring? It was Petula Clark. That long ago. You're kidding! And Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French and I went to see The Matinee. I was in a play at the Hammersmith the Lyric Hammersmith it was the letter Somerset Maugham play and I was the star of it and I opened I opened the play by firing six shots bang bang bang bang bang bang then the lights came on and there I was with the smoking gun that's how the play started it started at 7.30 so you fitted in a matinee we'd gone backstage so we went to a matinee oh god you are rock and roll aren't you Joanna no this is Jennifer you're my plus rock and roll I said I'd better go off she'd have to come back and say hello to Pet I think you've got to do that she knows we're in pet so we went backstage and pet was great and it took a bit longer which i think she's got some age on her darling yes anyway anyway anyway we we came back and it was a friday afternoon i think they were doing two shows two on friday two on saturday it was a friday and it was a downpour and i was coming along the cromwell road absolutely static i thought i can't do this so i drove my car to the pavement i went and knocked to the window of a man and mobile phones had just come in and mobile phones the size of that little transistor radio literally brick and I said I'm sorry Mr.

19:04Mann speaking your brick can you please help me because I'm going to be late for the show and he said here you can borrow the phone I said no you don't understand A I don't know how to do it B I can't remember the number of the theatre so he had to find the number of the lyric stage door say to them I've got a mad woman who's Now I'm knocking on my window. Says she's going to be late for the show. So I'm so sorry. And I gave him a pound coin. I said, I don't know what to pay you. He said, you don't know me. I said, here's your pound coin. And then I started to run. And I ran to Gloucester Road Tube.

19:37I got in the tube. I had no money. I didn't know how to do it. I said, you have to let me through. So I somehow got through. I got through and I ran. I think I made another person at the thing. At the station, I said to somebody, you have to buy me a ticket. Because I haven't bought a ticket. And I don't know how to do it. and they went, oh Christ, so I gave them the money I probably gave them 20 quid to get a ticket anyway, the ticket eventually got out Hammersmith, I began to run down that big King Street or something street it's called and waiting white lipped at the door because this was now quarter to eight so the audience had been waiting for half an hour and I was supposed to have been there at five to seven so I just ran straight in nobody was speaking, everybody was very still and very smooth like this and I just ran straight through they had my clothes there I was ripping off clothes as I ran I got into my 1930s red dress hair didn't matter, fuck it put on some red lipstick, gave me the gun I walked straight on the street, bang, bang, bang and the cast I mean I tell you the adrenaline was so huge that the play went, I think we lost 20 minutes from the play because everybody was reading oh you have fun The feeling of terror of being late is almost the worst thing in the world.

20:54Me too.

21:00Now that Alice is here and she's got a glass of champagne, she's got a glass of Bolly, I'd like to properly, formally introduce our guest tonight, which is Dame Joanna Lumley. I always forget that. How do you forget it? I do this all the time. Honestly, I'm so excited. I can't tell you. I can't tell you. it was the most unexpected thing in the world I was the proud owner of an OBE which we call an Obi-Wan Kenobi but I had an OBE and I thought this is just like magic nothing could be finer than this and OBE doesn't usually lead CBE which is a step up from that is the one that leads to being a dame or a night I always get mixed up with them MBE, OBE, CBE M is the first one then OBE is the second one CBE is the next one And then if you're lucky, you're nodding to the next floor.

21:51But did you start at MBE or did you just go straight to OBE? No, I just got an OBE. That was 1995, which was fabulous. And it was incredibly nice and incredibly charming. So when this letter arrived on the 4th of December, so it was quite late, my husband wasn't there because he was in Birmingham. And I opened this letter, which looked a little bit formal. Oh, God, there'll be something else I've left out. Another ticket or something. A bill. A bill or something. And anyway, it said, your name is being put forward for a DBE. And I burst into tears. Aww. Jessie, I burst into tears because it was such a shock.

22:26It was as though somebody... It's not like your agent rings you up or your manager goes, No. Joanna? No. Baby, you're going to be a star. You're going to be a dome. It's not like that. You get a letter from... You get a letter from... How interesting. Well, from the Honours Committee. Do you think it was for your philanthropy, for the Gurkhas, or for your acting. They said it was for drama, entertainment and charity. Oh, fantastic. So that was the kindest little trio. That's the best. I would never have accepted it for charity because I think if you do good things, that's up to you whether you want to or not.

22:59Do you know what I mean? And my OBE was given to me for services to drama or entertainment or whatever it was. But this, when they put drama and entertainment, I thought that was the kindest thing because it involves this. Yeah. And it involves my documentaries. and my writing, things I write and stuff like that. So it's good. Now, Mum. Yes, darling. I'm feeling a little... Do you think you need to eat? Are we sticking with the champagne, as they say on Virgin First Class? What else do you like to eat? We've got white wine. We've got a very nice white wine. We've got some nice red wine. We're going to keep going.

23:35What would you drink and what are we eating? We're eating... I don't really know how to describe it. She's such a pro. She's set up the introduction. I don't even know how to describe it. I have a very good friend called Anne Sweeney and she makes delicious food and this is something it's kind of a bit like a pizza but it's not a pizza it's not a pizza mum at all it's a pie in filo pastry it's a filo pie a filo pie with lots of veggie things and then there's a beetroot salad with yoghurt and then there's an ordinary salad and there's some bread if you want some bread I don't know what it's going to be like I think a glass of red would be divine I like the decisiveness, Jana.

24:17I was really concerned about what the food was. It's not that I actually just love red wine. You just needed a way to be able to set it up. Yeah, no, I love red wine. And can I tell you about this bloody good one that Mum... Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, Mum and I disagree on wines quite a lot, but this one... Picard is delicious. It's so good. It's not cheap, I think. It's not cheap. It's£12, but it's delish. Where is it from? Languedoc Chateau Saint-Hélène it's just very tasty I'm going to tell my husband who's is the word enophile O-E-N-O-P-H-I-L-E it means somebody who's crazy mad about wine oh really knows about them lays things down reads about them so does he have that app the one that you photograph the wine and then everyone rates it oh no he doesn't oh we need to get on that oh don't let me tell him I will tell him he'll get it and then it's like you see what the reviews are of this one.

25:15And it's called, is it called Vino Tech or something? It's called Vino Tech. He probably is on it secretly.

25:29The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. If you're a smoker or vapor ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zinn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

26:09Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zinn. Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

26:32Hello, Table Manners listeners. I just wanted to let you know about my new podcast, Is It Normal? The Pregnancy Podcast, which follows my pregnancy journey and with the help of some brilliant experts we'll reassure and inform you about all aspects of pregnancy and giving birth. Throughout my pregnancy I spoke to consultants, midwives, obstetricians, sonographers, mental health experts, doulas, home birth midwives, reflexologists, the list goes on and with the help of questions from other pregnant people the podcast covers as many aspects of pregnancy and giving birth as possible. I'd love you to have a listen and please let your pregnant friends know about it.

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27:24So have we started thinking about our last supper? Our last supper. Now look, I love to start with something... I think, I mean, you can tell already that it might be marginally a little bit tame for most people. That's okay. This is the toss-up. Is the Far East going to feature in this at all? Yeah. Okay, great. This is what I mean by a boring cook. It might be corn on the cob. I adore corn on the cob. I understand that. I just love it. Bit of butter on there? Butter, salt, pepper. Lovely. Pretty much that. And eaten very disgustingly with it falling down your chin. It's a nightmare for the teeth.

28:03Bad for the teeth. So then, small little toothpick. It might have been a cheese souffle. Ooh. Ooh, a little Swiss cheese souffle. So, like, oh. Just a little tiny one which comes up like a chef's hat. But, like, where have you had a memorable cheese souffle? In the Walsley. In the Walsley. Oh, I love the Walsley. Oh, I love it. I love it. I feel so happy. Me too. I adore it. I adore it. and they make a cheese souffle that is absolutely heavenly. Oh, is it? Okay, fine, I'll have it next time. So worth having it next time you're there. Because I like their avocado vinaigrette that they do there.

28:34I mean, it's really straightforward. I just love it, but that might be the third of my choices. Oh, okay. So when we come to this feast, I would allow... Bits and bobs. Yeah. Then for the main course, it would have to include rice. It might actually be some sort of magical curry. It would have dal. It would have all the bits and pieces. it might be a curry from Nepal it might be quite hot some quite hot chilli-ish things I adore all the bits that go on the side which are like poppadums and chapattis lime pickle, mango chutney everything you can think of I'm giving that to you first I don't want to cut well one darling because I should destroy it in seconds I like the idea I also love Malaysian curries I love the peanuts and the satay I love anything that's hot enough to need yoghurt and you know So you like a condiment?

29:33You like a few little things? I like a little spread I think I like a tali with some Malaysian bits in it And then pudding? Sweet person much? No Not bothered? No but I wouldn't mind a little sour lemon mousse or maybe a poached little pear or something like that I don't, this is an awful thing because I don't really love chocolate I don't like it when chocolate comes my way I don't think that's an awful thing to say What did you do tonight mum? I'd done roasted plums Bloody hell That's the thing, roasted plums is the business, god that looks sensational, it does have the hint of Domino's vegetarian supreme, does it?

30:16I have to say I do like it Good job Joanna Do I need to get dressing for the salad? Yeah. Oil and balsam. That's divine, honey. Is that enough? Look at that. It's divine. So, I need to know, if you're really into your curries, what's your takeaway curry place of choice? Do you get many takeaways? No. Do you go out for dinner a lot? No. We're literally the dullest and most unpleasant people you can imagine. We really are. we like having people round and forcing them to eat the fairly drab food we cook but if we had a takeaway, we've got a good one on the South Lambeth Road whose name sadly I can't remember they're fine.

31:00Have you always lived round there? For a long time, no, for 30 years. Do you like it? I love it So do you go to the Canton Arms? Or you don't go out? Canton Arms Canton Arms They are magic They do wonderful pub food They're sweethearts and once when Ranulph Fiennes and his team had been doing some hellish things in Antarctica trying to walk across it in the pitch dark of deep snow and everything went gosh, anyway, six months out there nightmare, when they came back because I was one of the keen followers of and patrons of the expedition I asked them round to lunch in our music room we've got an old factory which has been converted into a music room for Stephen's piano and harpsichord and keyboard and all those things and in there there's enough room for a swing of cat it's like a kind of, it's like a little school room really and I've got school room tables and I got Charlie from the Count on Arms I said think of a feast for homecoming sailors, homecoming explorers and he did a slow cooked lamb I think and he did stuff that was food that they would never have got out of tins in Antarctica for six months they adored it and I devised a cocktail for this occasion I quite love a cocktail I agree.

32:19That might come just before the first course. Aperative. What's your cocktail? It'll be the Bond Martini. Oh, shake and not stir. With gin or vodka? It would be with gin. And I think it's gin and vodka. If you look up the Vespa, it would have a twist. He doesn't have dirty. I like dirty, but he has it. Is that with an olive? Yeah. Well, I wouldn't mind that. No, neither. So you have it with a twist. Do you make cocktails at home? Stevie did the other night we had a cocktail the other night so you don't go out to eat that much you have people over and you do let's talk about cocktails it's too bloody busy you're not going to stop are you it'll stop it will never stop one day when it stops it won't stop for you at all people adore you but you're not a bit patsy are you really i'm a bit sad to say why no i know most people are sad because patsy was so fabulous she was so but she was disgusting you'd hate her here she wouldn't i know but i mean i'm sure you're so bored of talking about absolutely fabulous no i'm not i love it i love it was it kind of it was i mean how old how old were you when you were doing that 45 i don't know did it feel kind of like your most rock and roll period well the thing everything was was that i'd always been a fool and a comedian only everybody because I've been a model I was always put down for dull pretty girls who just did right things and so on so suddenly to see this script coming through the post where I was utterly repellent and very very awful well it wasn't quite written like that to begin with did you help shape that then yeah and she's so generous she lets that happen who wrote it Jennifer Jennifer wrote it a little bit tweaks here and there from Ruby who is just a genius yes she is but when you did Patsy you shaped her into being this awful person who hated no she was written they were both written as repellent women but it was lovely to be able to bring to Patsy the stuff I brought to her because she wasn't really she was chaotic she well Jennifer was more chaotic Jennifer was chaotic Patsy was just an alley cat she had no So she was like a kind of, she could live without any internal organs.

34:42She'd been a man at one stage in her life. She switched back. She was gender fluid before it became popular. Of course she was. She was an extraordinary character. And she just sailed through life using other people's money. And, you know, completely self-absorbed. It was her and Nadina, that's all she really cared about. It was quite an interesting kind of character. and as it went on Jennifer writing and writing and loved that character of Patsy and wrote masses for Patsy I love the hair did you have a hair piece? that was all my own hair oh my god the best hair Jennifer called it Mr Whippy back it up with a spray it and then tame it but that was only once a week we did the shows you'd forget the script on Monday read through Tuesday rehearse Wednesday show it to the crew who have to get the cameras in the right places.

35:34Thursday, do the outside broadcasting bits of arriving in taxis or doing whatever you have to do. Friday, block it again in the studio and then live show in front of the audience in the evening. Oh, wow. It was really hair-raising. Hair-raising. It was fantastic. It was fantastic. And the audiences were great. Sometimes we had to almost stop recording because they'd get completely hysterical. It would be wonderful. When do your ITV shows come out? I think they're coming out in maybe March. March, I think. And we talked about Rome, but you go to Paris and Berlin. Which was your kind of most memorable trip?

36:14I mean, which one felt like you learnt the most? The one I knew the least about was Berlin, although I'd filmed there and been a model there. I adored Berlin. Paris I'd known very well and loved very, very deeply. and Rome is just the eternal city. It is gorgeous. I've never been... Jessie, it's fantastic. You've got a treat ahead of you. I went first when I was 40, darling, so you've got a few years. You've got a treat ahead of you because it cannot disappoint. Did you go to the Vatican? I did. And was the... And guess what? What? He didn't come out and give you... No. This was before dawn. I arrived there at 4.30 in the morning.

36:54I was let in secretly through the vast rates to the Vatican Museum. where I went with the keykeeper, a man called Signor Crea. There are 2 ,707 keys to the Vatican Museum collection, the Vatican Museum. Good God. And there is only one key to the Sistine Chapel. Wow. The Sistine Chapel key is kept behind a locked door, behind a bunker, behind a sealed door, behind a safe. you open the safe and it gives you the key to another safe where you open it and every night the envelope containing the key to the Vatican to the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican it's sealed stamped, signed and I had it and we walked down these vast I took it with me and off we went clinking and jangling torch lit down these huge vast, gorgeous mile after mile of treasures and delights and extraordinary brilliances.

37:58And finally we got there and he said, he's here. And I said, oh my God. And just a big dark door. He said two turns to the left. So, and then the door went open. The torchlight. And suddenly you're in amongst me. My client is... Oh, it's just amazing. It's just amazing, isn't it? So that was one of the great, great treats. Do you ever bring your husband on lunch? You can't. No, none of us do. We're all married and none of us bring our people. We can't. How did you meet your husband? It's tiny. It's a tiny cruise. Yeah, of course. How did you meet your husband? Through people I knew. He was at school with the child of people I knew who were sort of half a generation older than me.

38:45And I'm eight years older than Stevie, so he was at school when I'd grown up and left and had Jamie with me on my lap. and he was going to come out of school with this school friend of his who was their son. And he never came and I thought, how odd, I'm really disappointed that I'm not meeting a 13-year-old boy who I've never heard of. That's really odd. So then leave it. Ten years go by and the son of the family is getting married and playing the organ, of course is the brilliant musician Stephen Barlow, his best friend from school. So I met him there, But I was with somebody else and he was just leaving Cambridge and flying high and being very difficult and so apart again.

39:26And the third time we met, or the third appointment with Fate, he was rehearsing. He knew where I lived and out of the blue came a Christmas card saying, do you still live there? That's odd. So I wrote and said yes. He said, I'm rehearsing around the corner. Can I come and see you? and he came and just talked at tea time and we just talked for three hours and that was it. It was kind of that. How old were you? I must have been about 37 by then. So you brought up Jamie on your own at the beginning? Yes, I did. I mean, on my own, you're never really on your own because you've got... I had my beloved family, my mother and my father and boyfriends, kind boyfriends who adored him and mostly one long-standing boyfriend who were great with him and his own father, who we always went to see and so on.

40:19So I was a single mother in what is not even worth recording nowadays, but in those days it was always a bit, ooh, you know, goodness, how can you manage that? Did you go to finishing school? No. You didn't go to, and did you go train at Lucy Clayton? I went to Lucy Clayton, but you had to go there for a month and give them 12 guineas. It was a modelling school. It was a modelling school, but it was almost like a finishing school. No, it had a finishing school. My mother wanted me to go. So come and give us some good Lucy Clayton manners, table manners. I didn't do that. I did the modelling thing.

40:53There was a side of it which was actually Lenny, the finishing school. She had a finishing school and a modelling school. This is what you don't do if you've probably gone to the finishing school. And then continue talking like that. That's disgusting. What you do, I would know, is that you take a napkin. Put your napkin and put it on your lap. Put it on your lap and put it on your left bit of leg. Left leg? Really? Why your left? I'll tell you later. I've no idea. I don't know, darling. I don't know, Len. I'm going to show you a very okay thing to do from Lucy Clayton. What? Put your finger and do that?

41:23No, darling. No, no, Jessie. I'm just indicating my plate. Oh, I thought she was going to get in there. Listeners, I'm just indicating my plate. And I'm indicating my plate to show that I've left some on the plate. You have to leave some. Because it would be greedy. I usually don't. I usually eat it all up. Because it's greedy if you eat it all. And this is called leaving something for Mr. Manners. Oh, shut up. No, no, sorry. Is that a thing? No, suck it up. Literally be there, Jessie. You weren't thinking for Mr. Manners. There was no point in sending. Mr. Manners ain't coming for dinner with me, I tell you that.

41:56There was no point in sending you, darling. Mr. Manners, somebody said, well, let's scrape it all into our box and send it to Mr. Manners. It tastes all right. It's good. The combination's nice. I think it's divine. Thank you. I've got hiccups now. You've got hiccups? Oh, God. It's OK. You probably need a bit more of this 15 cents. Oh, no, look, I'll tell you the cocktail. I might hiccup slightly. This is just part of it. It's caring. It's caring and sharing. You like the strong alcohol. You go through it. No, but look, this is the cocktail I made. I saw that the Russian word for the ridges of snow that freeze hard and become impossible to traverse with skis or sleighs, they're called sastrugi.

42:39They go up and down, up and down, and they're like waves of the sea which are frozen hard and they're murder to get through. You can't break them down and to drag stuff over it goes ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump like this. So I decided to make a cocktail called Sastrugi. This is what it is. Bien simple, très simple à faire. Very simple to make. I quite like a V-shaped glass. I quite like a cocktail glass. Yeah, me too. In the bottom it put a little blue curacao. I never know what to do with that. Just cover, darling. It's literally a colour, but it's got a bit of a kick to it. Bucurosan. Then you put a scoop of lemon sorbet.

43:23It's got to be shop-bought lemon sorbet, not smartly made by a chef's lemon sorbet. It's got to be the stuff you buy from the freezer counter. And go, that looks like a lemon sorbet. I'll have that. Scoop of that. So make a heated spoon, put it in, and blip that in. and then fill it to the top. With? With vodka. With vodka. It's got to be vodka, it's Russian. And what happens is that the dark blue remains, but it begins to stain the vodka, and then at the top sits this little slightly sweet block of ice, which chills right down. Who told you? I made it up. Oh, you made it up to you. Oh, I made it up.

44:09Look what did you do here, honey. Tell me what you did. I'll tell you what I did. I roasted them with honey and star anise. Then I removed the star anise because it's not very nice. They look completely beautiful. These are ripe little red plums which are cut. You've made them so that they sit flat. So you've cut a bottom off them. No, I haven't. Did they just go splodge? They went like that. They just went like that. You help yourself. Okay, this is me saying they didn't just have the bottoms cut off. but they're sitting very flatly looking absolutely beautiful like little peachy what do they look like?

44:45I don't know they look very nice when you make them they look absolutely beautiful and that's mascarpone with orange and mascarpone with orange yeah it's very nice I need to talk to you about your lip colour it's really good yes it is what colour is this lip? is it Charlotte Tilbury? because walk of shame no it isn't but how funny this is several layers of old stuff I've found in the cupboard but the thing is is that I've been doing, I've been on Zoom since this morning, 10 o 'clock. So I put stuff on, then I put stuff more on. Then they've been doing the ponds in the garden. I had to do that.

45:17Then I had to do something. Then I had to do another Zoom with somebody else. So each time I just put a layer of something else and I go upstairs, and God, I look like an old cow. Is this too dark? And I put a bit more on. I just, you look so sensational. Yeah. So this is a mixture of lips. A mixture of lips. The eyes. None of which are expensive. Eyes are old. I mean, I can't tell you. I use old stuff. My lovely Sarah, who's my Portuguese cleaner and helper, she's much younger than me, and she thinks I'm a darling old woman and takes care of me. And we went through all my old trunks and suitcases.

45:53Because whatever I do jobs, people give me makeup. You get makeup, and you can't use it all. You can't use all this stuff. No, you can't. So it goes away, and it's lovely and lovely. But you don't need 17 different colors of red lipstick. So they go into a thing. Sometimes I use it a bit, sign it, or put a thing with it and send it off to sometimes gay because they love the idea of having a Patsy lipstick and sometimes the other lipsticks I've used for Patsy and so on. And so all those lovely things. But in the end you can't do it. So she was helping me throw stuff out. And it just reminded me of how you tend to get a look that would kind of work for just being every day.

46:27Do you wear makeup every day? No, but if I'm to be on a Zoom or something, I do. So I don't... But this is you doing it yourself? Yeah. But darling, I was a model. I was a model. And in those days, modeling meant you did your own hair, your nails. You were your own accessorizer. You provided all your own clothes, your jewelry, makeup. You did your eyelashes. You did your wigs and hair, hairstyling. How long did you model for? Three years. But it's kind of come back to haunt me because in those days, to be a model was the most shameful thing in the world if you wanted to be an actress. Yes, it was.

47:02A model? Oh, I'm sorry. You can't learn lines. and you go, well, I was doing Shakespeare at school. They go, no, no, you're useless. So I fought for the first 10 years of my life desperately trying to get parts to show that I could do anything. But having been a model was fatal. Now, having been a model, everybody thinks you're fantastic. Models themselves are paid a king's ransom. We were poor as well. Paid nothing. Nothing. And that was fine. It didn't make me feel sad. But looking now at people saying, even 25 years ago, I wouldn't get out of bed for less than 10 grand. You go, what? what in three years if I was lucky enough to have earned ten grand, you know?

47:39So anyway, different times, different times. But you do look fantastic. Well, I put layers of makeup on, darling. I start quite early and I start layering it on. Layer it on. I know you do not. So what's next? Next, next, properly huge next will be another vast travel, which is back to my beloved faraway lands. Where? So this will start at the Banda Islands, which are just by, they're just northwest of New Guinea. And it's called the Spice Route. And it's following spices. Oh, my God. So all across Indonesia to Singapore, then across to Sri Lanka, down to Mauritius, across to Zanzibar, up through the Red Sea to Jordan, and then into Alexandria.

48:21Wow. Oh, how wonderful. And that's starting in September, going on till Christmas. Oh, wow. How exciting. What adventures. Um, Joanna, what is your least favourite table manner? Or do you think you, firstly, do you think you've got good table manners? Of course she did. She went to Lucy Bloody Clayton. But she did the modelling. But my ma taught me quite good table manners. So I think I've got good-ish table manners. And when I'm, when I'm in V polite society, I'm as anxious as everybody else thinking, should I put, but I know that when you, these are the things I know, I don't always do them.

48:55You cut your foot. which I just want to put in for the moment, in this podcast, at that moment I started talking, Jessie yawned. No, stop. She yawned. That's because I have three children. A huge child. It's the old, old Jessie. Listen, I'm never up at nine. That is not good table, woman. I've got three children. Jessie can't harp on about three bloody children. Look, darling, put your knife and fork down when you've put the mouthful in your mouth. Don't speak with your mouthful. Don't blow your nose on your napkin. Always get up and help the hostess if it's that kind of thing. You've got servants.

49:27Don't blow on your food. Don't blow on your food. Well, you can do that. No, my sister-in-law says you can't. Why? Remember, she shouted at Alec, she said it's not done. So what do you do? Just sit and wait? Just wait till it cools down. And if you're eating, which you won't now because it's long gone with the Queen Mother, start very quickly because she eats like the wind. Scoff, soft, scoff. Once she's put her knife and fork down, you can't eat anymore. You're kidding. What? Not the Queen. The Queen Mother, because it's rude. So you've got to eat. And as she served first And she ate quickly So what you've got to do is to pick the whole lot up And just scoop it straight in and swallow it down You'd be alright Jess I eat fast

50:07Dame Joanna Lumley Goodbye No please stay But thank you so much for doing this I've so loved it I'm really glad We've never had a dame before We have Ever We've had Sir Paul McCartney that's small fry come on not like a dame there is nothing like a dame nothing in the world

50:46I think she possibly is one of our favourite yads yeah and she really sealed she really sealed the fact that we must always start with Bollinger. Good old Bolly, darling. Bolly. She sent the loveliest card. She sent the most beautiful card of that lady sitting where she's drinking absinthe on her own. And she put a little bubble and she said, I just wish I was with Jess and Lenny. You can see Dame Joanna Lumley guest starring in the new TV series of Wednesday on Netflix, playing Morticia's mum. But also... I loved her in Amanda Lund. She's the most fantastic mother in Amanda Van. I'm so glad they developed her character.

51:27Yeah, it's brilliant. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Dame Joanne Lumley for coming over. It really was so special and we'll see you next week.

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