The Telegraph

The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 18 October 2020 *** 27 Features & Arts a kind of tour leader, as it were. Some of these places are complicated to visit, but if I can take viewers with me on my shoulder then that’s the greatest privilege in the world.” ‘People She’s also known for speaking her mind. Bailed-out bankers and young women who drink till they are sick are just some of the targets that have got caught in her crosshairs. Does she worry about the rise of mustn’t fall cancel culture, in which voicing unpopular views on modish subjects is an increasingly perilous thing to do? “Ah but the dangers for people my age is that you can get slightly into a victim detached from how things are mindset’ Joanna Lumley talks to Claire Allfree about the perils of cancel culture, the joys of reading and the importance of kindness Silk Road: Lumley relishes acting as ‘tour head of my interview “night”, from how sharks sleep, to leader’ in her travel documentaries with Joanna Lumley what causes the Northern Lights. Her there is some confusion voice, as she narrates these tales, is changing in the world,” she says. as to her whereabouts. truly something, almost seductive in “When I was young, gay men were One publicist thinks she its molten liquorice depths and still imprisoned and transitioning might be in Indonesia. soothing enough to send the most didn’t exist. So this new culture is In the event she’s in Stockwell, restless child to sleep, to say nothing very commendable. Of course, one Awhere she lives with her second of their parents. must be anxious about what one says; husband, the conductor Stephen Naturally, Lumley is a terrific fan of you never want to say anything that Barlow, but only part time: last week books in any form. “I’m all for would hurt someone. But people also she was in Scotland and Northern make-believe but there is something mustn’t fall into this victim mindset Ireland filming a new UK travel thrilling about facts that are often where they are always looking for documentary and the next morning stranger than fiction,” she says with ways to be insulted. I think we’ve all will be “up at the crack of dawn” to gusto. “Reading and being read aloud got to be a little bit more grown up wrap filming on her new ITV to are almost the mainstays of life, about it, and a bit kinder too.” comedy drama Finding Alice, they will always give you somewhere Kindness is important to Lumley. starring Keeley Hawes. to escape. When things are bad or too Particularly the need to be kind to “Funnily enough, I’ve been doing much to bear, particularly now in this older people, another cause dear to a lot through lockdown,” she booms time of infection, a book is the best her heart. “This afternoon, I raced down the telephone in that familiar place to turn.” through some things to donate to voice, rich as plum pudding, before I wonder what it would have been Mind, which is our local charity reeling off a list of recording projects like to have been in lockdown with shop, and I popped in and had a word including the latest series of her Lumley, who is not one for letting ITV BBC; IMAGES; GETTY / ARCHIVE HULTON / PHOTOS FOX and they said what they hate most is Radio 4 comedy Conversations things get her down. Jolly good for the loneliness of the old people who From a Long Marriage, all the soul I should think, if occupied, even if it’s helping with lonely as I don’t mind my own Soothing tones: used to come in just for a chat executed in line with exhausting. ‘When cleaning [at this point you wonder if company.” Joanna Lumley’s because it was really the only place to government She is full of things are Lumley views life as a sort of Actually, I suspect she’s also more of latest project is an go, and now feel they can’t.” guidelines, of sympathy for those permanent Girl Guide camp]. a canny operator than she lets on. audio recording for Naturally she doesn’t consider course. less fortunate than bad or too “I don’t want to be too rugger-b----r Certainly her acting career could be a children’s book herself as particularly old, or maybe “We wear her – “we have a hearty about it, but we’ve got to viewed as a series of nifty reinventions, it’s because she never allows herself masks, we are garden, the much to show bravery and resilience and from early glamour roles as a Bond girl to sit still long enough to consider it. distanced, we children are bear, common sense and good-heartedness and the high-kicking Purdey in The But surely she thinks a little bit about rehearse in grown, the about all this.” New Avengers, to the deliciously comic mortality? “I think with interest and masks, we don’t grandchildren especially In short, Lumley could give career-changing part as the fascination about death every gang together: are grown [she now, a Churchill a run for his money when it champagne-swigging horror single day,” she says cheerfully. the whole has one son from comes to morale boosting. The Patsy in Absolutely “I’m always wondering what it shebang,” she a brief book is Government ought to hire her as a Fabulous during the will be like and what will be says. “I’ve been relationship in one-woman public service Nineties and a Tony- on the other side. Also, tested more than 1967 with the the best broadcaster. But perhaps you’d nominated stint in La many heroes of mine have any human being in photographer place to expect nothing less from a woman Bête in the West End died. If Beethoven and the country. I was tested Michael Claydon, and who has always combined her work and on Broadway at Shakespeare and Elvis yesterday, I’m going to be two granddaughters], but turn’ with campaigns for an array of the end of the can die, then I can die.” tested again tomorrow. I’m an old we live in an area where people live causes, from full settlement rights for Noughties. And with that, the age pensioner [she’s 74] so therefore in a fourth-floor flat with maybe Gurkha soldiers to London’s ill-fated In the past indomitable I’m on the cusp of extreme three or four children, and when the Garden Bridge. decade, she’s also Lumley is off danger, except I’m not of course parks and playgrounds were locked What on earth keeps her going? established herself back to because I’m as fit as a flea, running down it absolutely broke my heart. “Good genes, I think. I’m lucky to be fit as a travel work. about the place.” Because, really, what harm would it and strong, I’m not an ill person. I’m a documentary Somehow during all this running do if the little ones were taken out to vegetarian, which I swear is something presenter, 5-Minute Really around Lumley has also found time breathe in the fresh air?” to do with it. And I’m optimistic. I’ve journeying up the True Stories for to record an audio version of a new Children, though, are resilient, she Nifty reinventions: been blessed with an amazingly Nile and across Bedtime (Britannica/ children’s book, 5-Minute Really continues, barely stopping for breath. as Purdey in The shallow mind, which is pretty much Russia alongside What on Earth) and True Stories for Bedtime, a brightly “Children lived through the bombs. New Avengers, left, happy all the time. I’m interested in trips to Japan, the accompanying audio illustrated anthology of short The next day they’d be out picking up and Patsy in things, so there is always something to India and Iran. book are out now factual pieces on the theme of shrapnel. And parents can keep them Absolutely Fabulous do. I don’t get bored and I don’t get “I’ve loved being Let’s hear it for documentary’s most unlikely stars listening to what ordinary people have A hit film about drunks in to say when presented with a camera. After Gates of Heaven was released, a bar is not the first to Herzog kept his promise and his mine ‘ordinary’ events for resulting filmWerner Herzog Eats His gold, says Shoe (1980) is no less an unlikely Matt Turner premise for a documentary. o description of the documen- Public transport has also proved a tary Bloody Nose, Empty fertile hunting ground for filmmakers. N Pockets makes it sound Katja Esson’s Ferry Tales (nominated particularly intriguing. The film for an Oscar in 2004) and Joel Wanek’s – which observes a group of down- Sun Song (2013) portray passengers and-outs over one night in a dive bar on, respectively, the Staten Island in Nevada – sounds pedestrian on Ferry, and a bus crossing Durham, paper. Who wants to sit and listen to North Carolina. real-life characters, that it has the drunken talk of others when you As with the bar in Bloody Nose, become a cult classic, as well as a yourself are sober? Empty Pockets, these meeting sites act teaching tool on documentary Yet, audiences and critics at this like microcosms of the society around courses. year’s London Film Festival have them.

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