Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - Second Helpings - Joanna Lumley

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

We’re dishing up a real treat on Second Helpings this week - she’d been on the hit list since day one and finally we had her! The one the only Dame Joanna Lumley popped over to Clapham for a vegetable pie & some poached pears and it was quite frankly absolutely fabulous. Joanna talks to us about growing up in India being addicted to limes her love of the Queen & cocktail nights at home. Speaking with experience she talks us through her desert island meal & being Patsy Stone. Whadda woman.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Second Helpings. I'm Jessie Weir 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 22. 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. Oh, 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. Produced, yeah. Produced 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, she had a new show out. It was called Cities of the World.

Basically, 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. second helpings. You still drink Polly. I do.

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. Lehiens, you so does, Lehiim, Lechim, Lechim, 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 worked all the way through.

But my husband's a musician, Jesse. Oh, is you? He's a conductor, he's a composer, he's a pianist. Rubbish for him, right? And everything went bang shut because all he just performing art. So you 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 slogging. as you know, 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, stay in the boat. And then guess what? The water will come calm and we'll still be there. What you're not to do is to disappear. I don't believe, have you had bumpy waters?

Not now, but early, early days, early days, bumpy, bumpy. Did you grow up in England? Or were you, your father was in? Eventually. Eventually, he was, I was born in India, my father's of 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 Ghazibu, and my father, my father was born in Lahore and I was born in Kashmir and my sister was born in Abu Ghire. So we were all born over there. And then the regiment moved, India had its independence. We 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? Well, India and I've been back many times. And the sort of tropics of the Far East, the smell of, I don't know, wet, latterite earth after rain

and the sound of jungle birds and things, the dark, dark skies and great thunderstorms. Those are the things like, 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 armour's 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 crinch or crunch or crunch. Sometimes you can sometimes Our Feng, one of our beloved cooks R is the kind of honorary. People say oh you mustn't call it that it's really insulting but R was Mrs. So it's like saying Mrs. Fang she used to make that rice but then at the very last minute

she'd crack an egg through the rice and 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 chau fan I adored it

oh that sounds great and what was the seasoning the seasoning was ginger garlic soy sauce and that was just always anything chilies or whatever I mean anything

Far Easterny seasoning Can you take a lot of heat then do you think Or you're not into heat? Some. Some. I once took a mouthful of green chilies. The hot, hot, hot green chilies thinking there 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, crunched a whole lot of 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 to say,

My ears would explode. Oh, no. Did they not offer you any yoghurt or milk? No, they were just like, suck it out, Joanna. They didn't, because it was one of those buffets where you helped 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, and you got boxes delivered, didn't they have 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 the City, the Fran Leibowitz thing, on Netflix?

No, I didn't. So good. And she says that she's kind of, her two favorite people are chefs and musicians because of like the creative. She's obsessed with them. And she says there's like lots to, yeah, they're quite alike. I'd like to say, yeah, we're just, you know. 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 the jizzed-dut. Or what we could get, because at the time, do you remember all the queuing at the mornings and wearing masks and looking on empty shelves and things? But 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'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. They don't. Like that's a slow-cooked, 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, don't. about easily 40 years maybe 45 years now 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 nor are not going 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 cuisine 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, instead of hitting the bike, 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 and 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've got you over for dinner mum has cooked a vegetarian meal mum gets very terrified about cooking vegetarian meals because she's such a she's such a meat eater so she's terrified yes and so I've had to hold her hand well for the time that I was

I love you for doing this. But it's, do you find that people struggle to know what to cook? Do you feel like they kind of over fussed 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. That's lovely. Yeah, but 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. Yeah. Non-meat meals, 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 book. Don't you? No.

Why not? I 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 did you get your inspiration? Well, I'm so dull as a cook. I'm a dull cook. Are you? 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 spray. of something, you know, and I won't do that, you know.

Feel as if I needed marinating for some. 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 a something or an omelet or 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 flavors you'd like. I love soup. I think soup is a lot. 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. You've ate in that. You must have eaten really. I never. I mean, also they always make me eat on the film. They say, and here, Gianna, you'll be going over and helping cook and then eat some of the stuff.

It's no hardship for me, but this is why I'm not as swelter as I would have been. So I have, in the three programs 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. He looks like Brando. He's got the temperament of Gordon Ramsey and is a brilliant chef. And 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 it, 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. So I do like a pineapple on my piece. Do you? 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. 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 walls and how, la, la, la. But getting out of London, I have 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... That was great. It felt like you're alive.

You feel you're living again. I don't know what it was. It hasn't. I don't know. It's a 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 you kind of get the gist you're i mean everyone's going to love having you in their ears we ask every guest what their last supper would be

so it was it's a starter main purred 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've gone desert island for a year or it can be good night nurse yes but if it was the very last supper you'd have to be in pretty good form you mustn't be all croaking away with their own teeth and everything so let's say you're healthy just before i'm going away to yeah v back remember i've been on desert island with no have you i was cast away i was cast away ages ago it was before any of these cast away what before like, hold them, are we talking pre, kind of... It was in about 1993.

Oh, wow. Before shipwreck, before the castaway, before the island. Before Love Island. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was called Girl Friday. I was Girl Friday, the Guinea Pig. 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? Stuff, pretty much, stopped. Did they help? They said over the island, it was a desert. It was a desert island, so there's nobody on it. There'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 the 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, yeah. Lovely contrast. Are you glad you did it? Yes. I had rice. That was good. Hon, did you have to make the rice?

Did you have to do like flint, what's it, you know, when you strike up? Do you have to do all that stuff? 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. I was on my own. What a flying foxes?

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.

Did she hallucinate? No. So 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. So celery, apples, things that go crunch. That you could get your teeth into it. Crunch, crunch and green. Hello. God, how lovely to see you. She's here.

It's the traffic just, it's a nightmare. Nearly three hours. Where have you come from? Hack me. It's a nightmare. I've got good luck in Tower Bridge. I've done this before, you know. I did this when I was doing a play.

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, Mormon play. And I was the star of it.

And I opened it. I opened the play by firing six shots bang bang bang bang bang bang bang then the lights came on there I was with a smoking gun that's how the play started it started at 730 so you fitted in a matinee we've gone backstage so we went to a matinee oh god you are rock and roll aren't you Joanna

you're coming you're my plus rom for enemy I said I'd better go off shit you've got 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 how much I think she's got some age on her darling Yeah, shit. Anyway, anyway, 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 into the pavement. I went and knocked the window of a man, and mobile phones had just come in, and mobile phones were the size of that little transistor radio, literally a brick. And I said, I'm sorry, Mr. Mann speaking, in your break. Can you please help me? me because I'm going to be late for the show and he said here you can borrow the phone

and 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 knocking on my window says she's going to be late for the show so I'm so sorry and I gave him 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 I got in 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, price. So I gave them the money. I'd probably get 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 a fourth one 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 not 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 onto red lipstick gave me the gun I walked straight through and I walked straight through it 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 being

oh you have fun don't you feeling of terror of being late is almost the worst thing in the world me too now that Alice is here and she's got a glass of champagne she got a glass of bolly I'd like to properly formally

introduce our guest tonight which is Dame Joanna Lonley I always forget that How do you forget it I'm 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-One Canobi But I had an OBE And I thought this is just like magic Nothing could be fine 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. So, M-E, O-B-E, C-B-E, that's the order they go. Oh, M is the first one. First one. Then O-B-E is the next one. And then if you're lucky, you're not at the next one. But did you start at M-B-E, or did you just go straight to O-Bee? 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 or something and anyway it said your name is being put forward for a DBE

and I burst into tears Jesse I burst into tears because it was such a shock it was so somebody... It's not like your agent rings you up all your manager goes 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 You get a letter from, well, from the honours committee. Do you think it was for your philanthropy, for the Gurkers, or for your acting?

They said it was for drama, entertainment and charity. Oh, well, 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. Do you what I mean? and my OBE was given to me for services to drama or entertainment or it was but this when they put drama and entertainment I thought that was the kind of thing

because it involves this yeah and it involves my documentaries and my writing things I write and stuff like that that's good now mum yes darling I'm feeling it all do you think you need to eat are we sticking with the champagne as they say on virgin first class 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. What 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. 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, mom, at all. It's a pie in filo pastry.

A filo pie with lots of veggie things And then there's a beetroot salad with yoghurt and then there's an ordinary salad with 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'd love that I like the decisiveness to Joanna It looked as though I 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, I mean, like, mum and I disagree on wine's quite a lot, but this one, it's delicious, it's a carter. It's not cheap, I mean, it's not cheap, it's 12 pounds, but it's delicious. Where is it from?

Longer Dock, Chateau-S-E-L-N. It's just very tasty. I'm going to tell my husband who's, is the word enophile? O-E-N-O-E-P-H-I-L-E. It means somebody who's crazy mad about wine, 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 does that. 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 wine. And it's called, is it called VinoTech or something? It's called Vino Tech. He probably is on it secretly.

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The full 40 weeks are available now wherever you get your podcasts. So have we started thinking about our last supper? Our last supper. Now look, I love to start with something... I mean, you can tell already that it might be marginally a little bit tame for most people, my last supper. 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. A bit of butter on there?

Butter, salt, pepper, and pretty much that. And eaten very disgustingly with it falling down your chin and just going, like, right. It's a nightmare for the teeth. Bad for the teeth, so then a small little toothpick. It might have been a cheese souffle. Ooh. Oh, a little Swiss cheese souffle. So, hon, like, oh, okay.

Just a little tiny one, which comes up like a chef's hat. But like, where have you had a memorable cheese suflay? In the Walsley. In the Walsley, they do. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

I love it. I love it. I love 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 next time you're there. Because I like their avocado vinegaret that they do that. I 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 dull. It would have all the bits and pieces. It might be a curry from Nepal. It might be quite hot, some quite hot, chili-ish things. I adore all the bits that go on the side, which are like popadums and chapatis. And the lime pickles.

All things you're not supposed to. Lime pickle, mango chutney, everything you can think of. I'm giving that to you first and you're not... 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 stuff like that.

The sate. I love anything that's hot enough to need yogurt and... you know, whatever it's called. So you like a condiment. You like a few little things. I like a little spread. A tarley, yeah. I think I like a tarly with some Malaysian bits in it.

And then pudding, sweet person much? No. Not bothered. No, but I love, I wouldn't mind a little sour lemon mousse or a little, 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 of that.

thing to say. What did you do tonight, Mum? I've done roasted plums. Oh well that'll be alright. That's a bit like a poach plant. That's the thing. No, roasted plums is the business. God, that looks sensational. It does have the hint of Domino's vegetarian supleen. Does it? I have to say. I do like that. I do like it. Godin Chalana. Yes, brilliant. Do I need to get dressing for the salad? Yeah. Oil and balsamette. That's divine, honey. Is that enough at that? Oh, 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. 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. Have you always lived around there?

For a long time, no, for 30 years. Do you like it? I love it. So do you go to the Caton 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 Ranul Fines 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 gassy. 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 around 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 to swing a cat. It's like a kind of, it's like a little schoolroom, really, and I've got schoolroom 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 had devised a cocktail for this occasion. I quite love a cocktail. I agree with that might come just before the first course. Apperative.

What's your cocktail? It'll be the Bond Martini. Oh, you're shaken not stirred 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 is that with an olive? Yeah Well I wouldn't mind that No 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 cocktail Let's talk about cocktails It's too bloody busy. No, you are quite busy.

When are you going to... You're not going to stop, are you? It'll stop. Why should you? It will never stop. No. One day when it stops, then I'll know it's the time. No, it won't stop for you at all.

Because people adore you. I mean... But you're not... 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.

Patsy was so fabulous. But she was disgusting. dusting your tater here. She wouldn't eat her. 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, I mean, how old were you when you were doing that? Forty-five, 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'd 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, man? Yeah. And she's so generous she lets that happen. Who wrote it? Jennifer. Jennifer wrote it.

Jennifer wrote it. A little bit tweaks here and there. From Ruby, who was 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. Well, Jennifer was more chaotic. Jennifer was chaotic. Patsy was just an an accout. She had no, she was like a kind of... She could live without any internal organs.

She'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 extraordinary character. And she just sailed through life using other people's money. and, you know, completely self-absorbed. It was her and Nadeena, 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? All my own hair. Oh, my God. Back with the best hair.

Jennifer called it Mr. Whippy. Back it up with her, spray it, and then tame it. But that was only once a week, you see. 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. Thursday, do the outside broadcasting bits of arriving in taxes or doing whatever it. 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. But sometimes we have to almost stop recording because they get completely hysterical. It would wonderful. When do your ITV shows come out? I think they're coming out in maybe March, I think. And we talked about Rome, but you go to Paris and Berlin. Which was your kind of most memorable trip?

I 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 I mean it is gorgeous I've never been

Jessie it's fantastic 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 because I was thought And guess what?

What? He didn't come out and give you This is before dawn. I arrived there at 4.30 in the morning. I was let in secretly through the vast rates to the Vatican Museum, where I went to the keykeeper, a man called Signorea. There are 2,707 keys to the Vatican Museum collection, the Vatican Museum. And there is only one key to the Sistine Chapel.

The Sistine Chapel key is kept behind a lock 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 I was in keep the key and off we went clinking and jangling torch lit down these huge fast got a mile after mile of treasures and delights and extraordinary brillances and

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 much longer is oh wow it's just amazing isn't it so that was one of the great great treats Do you have to bring your husband on? 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 crew. Yeah, of course. How did you meet your husband? Through people I knew. He was at school with the child of a people I knew who were sort of half a generation older than me. And 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 10 years go by and the son of the family is getting married and playing the organ

of course is the brilliant musician Stephen Barlow who's 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 part again and the third time we met with you know the third appointment with fate he was rehearsing he'd find he knew where I lived

and he out of the blue came a Christmas card saying are you do still live there that's odd I wrote and said yes you 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's it that was it it was kind of that how old were you i must have been about 37 by then you brought up 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 he always went sea and so on. So it was, 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 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, and it was also a finishing school. No, it had a 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.

There 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 lap and put it on your lap and put it on your left bit of leg. Really?

Why you're left? I'll tell you later I've no idea I don't know darling I don't know then I'm going to show you a very okay thing to do from Lucy Clayton what put your finger and do they

no no darling no no I'm just indicating my plate I thought she could get in there and 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 so because it'll 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 Manors Oh, shut up No, no, sorry Is that a thing? You know, suck it up

Literally be there, Jesse You weren't for Mr. There was no point There was no point in coming for dinner with me I tell you that There was no point in sending you, darling Mr. Manor, somebody said Well, let's scrape it all into our box

And send it to Mr Manning It tastes all right It's good, fine Combinations nice I think it's fine Yeah I've got hiccups now You've got hair cups

Oh God you probably need a bit more of this 15 cents oh now look I'll tell you the cocktail I might take up slightly just this is just part of it's caring it's caring and sharing you like the strong alcohol you go yeah 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 slays they're called Sastrugi they 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, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, like this. So I decided to make a cocktail called Sastrugi. This is what it is. Bien simple, very simple to make. I quite like a V-shaped glass. Yeah. I quite like a cocktail glass. Yeah, me too. In the bottom

it, put a little blue cuirassau. Not a lot. Not a lot. Just that's the only thing. That's the only thing. I think, it's a literary colour, but it's got a bit of a kick to it. Bucuracan. Then you put a scoop of lemon sorbet. It'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 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 it right down. Who told you this? I made it up. Oh, you made it up to you now. Look 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.

They might remove 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 just went like that.

So, okay, this is me saying they didn't just have the bottoms cut off. But they're sitting very flatly looking up. absolutely beautiful like little peachy what do they look like little I don't know they look very nice when you make them and they look absolutely beautiful and that's mascaponi with orange and mascavone with orange yeah it's very nice I need to talk to you about your lip colour it's really good yes what colour is this lip is it Charlotte Tilbury because walk of shame no it isn't but how funny this is it is several layers of old stuff I 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 and then I put stuff more on. Then they've been doing the ponds in the garden. I had to do that. Then 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 up and says God, I look like a 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 Sara, who's my Portuguese cleaner and helper, she's much younger than me, and she thinks I'm a darling old woman,

takes care of me. And we went through all my old trunks and suitcases, because 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. So it goes away, and it's lovely and lovely, but you don't need 17 different colours 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 they are the lipstick 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 do you wear makeup every day no but if I'm to be on a Zoom or something I do so I don't know

but this is you doing it yourself yeah but you're very I was a model I was a model And in those days, in those days, modeling meant you did your own hair, your nails, you were your own accessory, you provide 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. A model? I'm sorry. You can't learn lines. And you go, well, I was doing Shakespeare school. They go, no, no, no, you were 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? In three years, if I was lucky to have enough to have earned 10 grand, you know? So 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 on.

Lair it on. So what's next? Next, next, properly huge next will be another vast travel, which is back to my beloved faraway lands. 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, starting the banner.

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. Wow. Oh, how wonderful. And that's starting in September going on until Christmas. Wow.

How exciting. What adventures. Joanna, what is your least favorite table manner? Firstly, do you think you've got a good table manner? Of course she did. She went to Lucy Bloody Clayton. But she did the modelling. But my mar taught me quite good table manners. So I think I've got good-ish table manners. And 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. You cut your food. I just want to put it in for the moment. In this podcast, at that moment I started talking, Jesse yawn. I'm so much talking.

She yawned, hugely. That's because I have three children. A huge. A huge. It's the old... Listen, I'm never up at nine. I'm never up at nine. I've got three children.

I'll all that stuff. Jess, you 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. Don'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? She's shouted about it. So it's not done. So what do you do? Just sit and write.

Just wait until 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, and once she's put her food, a 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 it's fast. 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 all right, Jess. I would have done really well. I eat fast. I eat fast. Joanna, Dame Joanna Lumley.

Goodbye. No, please stay, but thank you so much for doing this. I've so loved it. I'm really glad. I've loved it. We've never had a Dame before. I don't think we have. No, I know we have.

Ever. Not even had us. We've had Sir Paul McCartney. And Sir Donald James. Small fry, come on. Yeah, not like a dame. There is nothing like a dame. Nothing in the world.

I think she possibly is one of our favourite parts. Yeah. And she really sealed. She really sealed the fact that we must always start with Bollinger. Good old Bolly, darling. 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 Mortisha's mum. But also... I loved her in Amanda Land. She's the most fantastic mother in Amanda. I'm so glad they developed her character.

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