ACTING HER AGE

Joanna Lumley opens up about turning 80, her starring role in Wednesday and her friendship with the King

- ROSALIND POWELL

Dame Joanna Lumley has held national-treasure status for some time; she is loved for her acting, admired for her travel documentaries and commended for her charity work. But could joining the cast of Netflix's latest success story, the horror-comedy Wednesday, put her on the brink of global superstardom?

"Oh, I don't think so, darling," says Joanna with an insouciant wave of her hand, pointing out that she visited Los Angeles recently for a large publicity event and "nobody had the smallest idea who I was".

Chatting to her, you're welcomed into a world of charm, where things are "gorgeous", "adorable" or "divine". Polite, classy and self-deprecatingly funny, she is clever and entertaining as well as quintessentially English.

Sitting at her kitchen table to speak to HELLO! via video call in her velvety, plummy tones, she is surrounded by the detritus of home life and smoking a cigarette, à la Patsy, the character she is best known for playing in Absolutely Fabulous.

Joanna's recent turn in the BBC comedy Amandaland as Felicity, Amanda's self-obsessed mother, won her new fans, and her new venture, Wednesday, is based on the character of the same name from the Addams Family cartoons.

The show, starring Jenna Ortega in the title role, is Netflix's most popular English TV series, drawing more than 250 million viewers.

Joanna, 79, features in the second series as Hester Frump, the formidable grandmother of the show's heroine, and describes her character as a "funky old crow" and a "rum old bird".

NEW CHALLENGE

Hester is, in fact, a spectacular creation, with a towering wig, a vampy wardrobe and an imperious demeanour that could rival Cruella de Vil.