Review of the Motherland spin-off, with Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley

The first thing you notice about Amandaland is how similar it is to its predecessor. The second thing you notice is that you miss Julia, Liz, Meg and Kevin. And the third, after a while, is that their absence doesn’t actually matter that much, as the Motherland spin-off proves itself a just as cruelly delightful as the original.

After all, Lucy Punch’s Amanda is that most enduring of sitcom archetypes, the social-climbing snob who is never going to be accepted into the circles they so eagerly want to ingratiate themselves into. While Basil Fawlty might have gone starry-eyed over a the prospect of encountering a minor member of the aristocracy, Amanda  is besotted by a fashionable rising-star chef whose daughter attends the same school as her own kids.

That 'bog standard’ establishment, as we discover in an opening-scene update, is not in the middle-class nirvana of Chiswick, where Motherland was set, but in the more mixed neighbourhood South Harlesden, or ‘SoHa’ as estate agents insist on calling it. Amanda, of course, is well on board with that fake gentrification.

While she’s widely awful, with zero thought for anyone else in her orbit, Punch shows great skill in making the character slightly sympathetic, as well as displaying perfect comic cadence in every delivery. Amanda’s trying to make the best of her situation, inflicted on her by a divorce, and that obliviousness gives her a thick skin that, in Punch’s hands, comes close to the more appealing trait of resilience.

That there are people more horrid than her helps, too. As chef Della, Siobhán McSweeney (aka Sister Michael from Derry Girls) makes no secret of her contempt for Amanda so desperately trying to muscle into her life. 

Speaking of contempt, Joanna Lumley is peak Joanna Lumley, as Amanda’s pushy mum full of arch, cutting comments on every aspect of her daughter’s life, while in utter denial of  her own failings, which include knocking back as much booze as Ab Fab’s Patsy ever did. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. 

Amanda is also clearly lonely, adding to her empathy, even though it’s a predicament entirely of her own making as she can’t bring herself to be truly friendly with faithful, good-hearted Anne – the only other character reprised from Motherland – as she’s such a doormat with no social cachet.

Writers Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz and Barunka O'Shaughnessy savage middle-class mores are savaged with the sort of fake politeness the most passive-aggressive members of that demographic would envy. But while some may watch with cringe, it’s not just a comedy of toe-curling embarrassment – so often used as a substitute for actual gags post-The Office – there are sharp, funny lines throughout the pacy script.. 

In a reversal of an old sitcom criticism, the male characters are only drawn with a fraction of the nuance of the female ones, with Amanda’s nice-guy neighbour Mal (Samuel Anderson) looking like he’s only there to follow the romcom template of irritation yielding to attraction. 

But our anti-heroine will face plenty of personality clashes of her own making along the way, and we’ll enjoy every humiliating minute of them.

» 'She's like a Harlesden version of Madonna': Holly ​Walsh on Amandaland

Review date: 6 Feb 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett