‘Grand, beautiful and buzzy'

Joanna Lumley chats to TV Times about the ‘intoxicating’ mix of Che Guevara, extreme heat and pina coladas she found in Cuba and Haiti

- REBECCA FLETCHER & EMMA BULLIMORE

As TV Times sits down with Joanna Lumley for a chat about her latest globetrotting adventure, it’s hard to imagine the Absolutely Fabulous star looking anything other than, well, absolutely fabulous!

Yet vanity, she insists, took a back seat when she travelled from Cuba to Haiti, due to the heat.

‘I was sweating like a pig!’ laughs the 73-year-old star, recalling the month she spent filming Joanna Lumley’s Hidden Caribbean: Havana to Haiti, her new two-part travelogue for ITV.

‘I don’t think I’ve been that hot before. We could hardly walk and were almost crying.’

The heat wasn’t the only challenge Joanna faced exploring these neighbouring Caribbean isles, whose twists and turns of history have seen them be colonised, populated by slaves and blighted by earthquakes and crippling political sanctions.

Poverty reduced her to tears many times, but the 1,500-mile trip, uncovering and sharing the countries’ hidden gems, has resulted in her most memorable TV journey yet.

‘Cuba and Haiti are two of the most challenging countries I’ve ever visited, but they’ve given me some of the best experiences,’ smiles Joanna, before telling us more…

You’ve made a string of ITV travelogues since 2010 – do you get to choose where to go?