Joanna Lumley reveals how she thinks iconic Ab Fab alter-ego Patsy would cope in lockdown

She has played the iconic Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous since 1992’s pilot TV episode through to the 2016 movie version of the show.

And Joanna Lumley has now speculated how Patsy would have coped with the COVID-19 pandemic – especially in a lockdown.

According to Joanna, 74, ‘As long as she had half a room filled with cigarettes, the other filled with bolly and vodka, I’d don’t think she would have noticed’.

Speaking about the character on the latest edition of The Jonathan Ross Show, she added: ‘The odd man sent through. She’s got no interest in the outside world at all.’ 

Joanna played the role opposite the sitcom’s creator Jennifer Saunders, who portrayed Edina Monsoon.

The show ran for five full seasons, with various specials in between, coming to a close with a special Olympics-themed episode in 2012.

The plot was picked up again the Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie in 2016, with Joanna and Jennifer joined by recurring co-stars Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks and June Whitfield – the latter of whom passed away in 2018.

Asked about whether there will be anymore Ab Fab, Joanna said: ‘I don’t think so. I think Jennifer’s decided not to do it. And also we’ve lost June Whitfield.

‘We’re now all older… we’ll wait and see. But it’s up to Jennifer, it’s not up to any of us.’

She added: ‘I think I loved doing that show more than anything in the world, we just laughed all the time.’

Of her own lockdown experience, Joanna recalled: ‘I got bored after six weeks. I started painting. Like a table, [I’d look at it and think] “That could do with a lick of paint!”

‘I do fix things… I love it, I love doing things like that. I like old things and making it a bit better, like recovering a cushion.’

Joanna has also filmed travel shows on and off for 20 years, and explained that she was able to carry on with them during lockdown.

‘This year we were due to do the spice route from sort of New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Jordan, Egypt… cancelled. We didn’t give up.

‘What we did was equally thrilling – we’ve called it, Travels In My Own Land: Joanna Lumley’s Home Sweet Home.

‘Off we set – England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. We were going to do the Republic of Ireland but unfortunately at the time they had the lockdown, we couldn’t get in without a fortnight of quarantine so we had to leave it for the moment.

‘We’ve seen such fantastic things. Such beauty, things like the Lake District, it was like a film, like an advertisement with the blazing sun we had this summer.’

She added: ‘Some of the things we did included going back to Coronation Street. So I did a bit of a wander down Coronation Street, then interviewed Bill Roach in the Rovers. I was never allowed to go in there as my character. It was divine to do that.

‘And I was invited to Aston Martin to see the new DB5… with machine guns, wheels that come out like that [sideways], a bullet shield at the back… I’m forever auditioning to get into a Bond somehow.

‘I drove this little baby around Silverstone… smoke would come flying out, I’d prime the machine guns… just pretend guns, like films.’

Jonathan Ross is also joined by The Apprentice: You’re Fired and Bake Off: The Professionals host Tom Allen, BAFTA award-winning actor and comedian Gbemisola Ikumelo, and musician Paloma Faith.    

*THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW, SATURDAY 14TH NOVEMBER, 10.30PM ON ITV.