Dame Joanna Lumley doesn't watch much television.
Dame Joanna Lumley doesn't watch much television
The 78-year-old actress has been on the small screen for decades and is known to viewers for fronting a slew of travel documentaries but revealed that she keeps her own TV set concealed at home and only brings it out for a small selection of programmes.
She told My Weekly: "It’s hidden behind a cupboard door. In a rather bourgeois kind of way, I keep it covered up because I think a black screen looks rather odd in a room that’s got lots of paintings and books everywhere. I read a lot and listen to music but I do like travel programmes.
“I also enjoy what I call my special pain kind of TV, shows like 'The Apprentice' and 'First Dates'. Some of the things the people on those programmes say and do make me curl up with embarrassment and horror.
“It’s kind of agonising to watch but I do so love it. It’s not a guilty pleasure thing in the slightest. I’m quite upfront about it!”
Joanna started her career as a model before moving into acting and appeared as an early love interest of Ken Barlow (William Roache) on 'Coronation Street' before finding wider fame as Purdey in 'The New Avengers' in the late 1970s.
But in the early 1990s, Joanna received a career revival when she accepted the role of boozy fashion editor Patsy Stone on 'Absolutely Fabulous' and starred alongside writer Jennifer Saunders, who played the hapless PR guru Edina Monsoon.
The BBC sitcom ran for three series until 1996 and then returned for another run in the early 2000s but almost a decade after the feature film was released, she is pleased to have had the chance to sit down with her former co-stars for the reunion documentary 'Absolutely Fabulous: Inside Out', which will air on GOLD in October.
She said: "It is a fabulous wander down memory lane by actresses who only have the faintest grip on reality. Really thrilling, and I hope vastly entertaining. I loved every second.”
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