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They played bickering friends who were always at each other’s throats in Absolutely Fabulous.
Now Dame Joanna Lumley has revealed she told her former co-star Jennifer Saunders that they had to reunite on-screen ‘or I’ll have to kill you’.
The remark came during a screening of the Amandaland Christmas special at London’s BFI Southbank, as the hit Motherland spin-off prepares to return to screens following its roaring debut earlier this year.
It will mark the first time the pair have shared the screen since the 2016 Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, where they played the champagne-guzzling duo Eddie and Patsy.
In Amandaland, Lumley, 79, stars as Felicity Sanderson, the wicked mother of the titular character Amanda, played by Lucy Punch, while Saunders, 67, guest-stars as Felicity’s sister, Joan.
Speaking at the screening, Lumley revealed she had been quietly determined to lure Saunders back to the BBC fold.
She said: ‘When I heard the notion that it might be Jennifer, I actually emailed Jennifer and said, “If the script comes your way, do it, or I’ll have to kill you.”‘
Saunders, whose career spans decades of BBC comedy, described the reunion as ‘an absolute gift’.
‘I am delighted to be joining the fabulous Amandaland gang for a Christmas special’, the comedy icon said. ‘It was really good fun just hanging out.’
But despite their decades-long friendship, Dame Joanna insisted the Amandaland dynamic felt entirely new.
‘Because we know each other, we never think of it as being on screen,’ she said. ‘The difference here, of course, is that we’re playing sisters. When we were doing Ab Fab we just knew how they would be. We’ve never played these two.’
Amandaland averaged 6.4 million viewers when it premiered in February. It quickly became the BBC’s second biggest comedy launch, and filming for the second series is now underway.
The warm reunion offered a rare moment of celebration for the BBC, which this year has lurched from crisis to crisis.
Saunders suggested that the BBC focus on its entertainment, rather than news content.
‘We definitely need more comedy,’ Saunders replied when she was asked about the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s recent lawsuit against the BBC.
The corporation is bracing for an eye-watering legal bill of up to £75million as it prepares to fight a $10billion (£7.5billion) lawsuit launched by the US President over a doctored clip aired in a Panorama documentary.
Mr Trump’s legal team has accused the BBC of defamation and unfair trade practices, after footage of a speech he gave on January 6, 2021 was edited in a way that made it appear he urged supporters to march on the US Capitol.
An internal report accused the broadcaster of bias and censorship, prompting high-level resignations – including director-general Sir Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness – in one of the most serious crises of leadership in the corporation’s history.
