The life of spice

Dame Joanna Lumley takes an absolutely fabulous trip along the spice trail

- HANNAH DAVIES, NATASHA HOLT, TESS LAMACRAFT, IAN MACEWAN

NEW TRAVELOGUE

Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure

Wednesday, 9pm, ITV1

National treasure Dame Joanna Lumley followed the famous Silk Road in a 2018 documentary series. Five years on, her new TV travelogue takes her on a journey of the senses as she traces another ancient trading route – the spice trail.

In four-parter Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure, she travels through Indonesia, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Jordan and India (where she was born) to tell the exotic story of the centuries-old spice trade.

‘The idea is to tell the history of these amazing spices,’ says Lumley. ‘It’s now so normal for us to cook with them, but in the old days in Europe, we had salt, pepper and mustard, and that was about it. So I now treat spices with such respect, knowing what goes into growing, harvesting and caring for them.’