Amandaland review: Joanna Lumley still gets the best lines in this comedy triumph

Sitcom spin-offs that bring side characters into their own world don’t always work – just look at the likes of Joey or The Cleveland Show. But sometimes there is a Frasier. And BBC One’s Amandaland falls into the latter camp, too, matching – and often surpassing – its (ahem) parent show Motherland in both laughs and ratings for its first series and Christmas special last year.

It’s not hard to see why. In some ways, Amandaland works more cleanly as a sitcom than the grounded, ensemble piece Motherland ever did, with Lucy Punch’s failed influencer Amanda Hughes the kind of deluded, ridiculous figure that great comedy is built around.

She’s the David Brent of South Harlesden, the Hyacinth Bucket of the Instagram grid. Watching her missteps, you laugh, you cringe… but sometimes, a little part of you celebrates her (few) victories.

That said, victories are in short supply in the latest, second series, with indignity upon indignity piled atop Amanda’s perfectly coiffed hair.

She’s caught in an embarrassing Google Maps shot, called out at her local coffee shop, edged out of a perfect house sale and regularly belittled and undermined by her imperious mother (a brilliant Joanna Lumley, still given all the best lines). Worst of all, she’s discovering that her teenage kids, Georgie and Manus, need her a lot less than they used to, and that she might not be the cool mum she always imagined herself to be.

If the first series hit the ground running, this one’s a sprint; a slick joke machine from writers Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and newcomer Laurence Rickard, one of the Horrible Histories/Ghosts collective (he also has a small role here as a teacher).

Every episode is stuffed with memorable one-liners ("she came, she saw, she gentrified") and clever payoffs, with great performances in particular from Punch, Lumley and Philippa Dunne as Amanda’s best pal Anne, who grows a bit of a backbone this series after years of being her punching bag.

Among such elevated company, Rosie Cavaliero still nearly steals the show in the final episode, where she guest stars as a chaotic make-up artist hired to work with the teenagers before their prom.

However, not everything in this series is as smooth as Amanda’s post-filter Instagram pics. Like Motherland, Amandaland is something of an ensemble, and sometimes the series struggles to juggle individual plots for all the other characters in Amanda’s orbit (although some are terrific, as when Rochenda Sandall’s Fi accidentally becomes a stereotypical white van driver).

Siobhán McSweeney’s frosty chef Della is somewhat absent this time round (appearing fully in two episodes and once over video call from an overseas job), which leaves room for a new character to emerge.

The previously unseen ex-wife of Mal (Samuel Anderson) and current partner to JJ (Ekow Quartey), Abs (Harriet Webb) is introduced as a new, down-to-earth foil for Amanda. But despite Webb’s comedic talents (best evidenced in Channel 4’s Big Boys), her character doesn’t add too much to the group dynamic across all six episodes. In some ways, Abs was funnier as a fearsome off-screen figure – perhaps future series will find more for her to do?

That aside, this second series is a comedy triumph; a winning confluence of characters, plotting and gag-writing that makes a sitcom worth returning to. Whether you see yourself in Amanda, her friends, her mum or her kids – or none of them at all – it’s the kind of slick, relatable 'content' that Amanda’s feed could only dream of hosting.

Amandaland season 2 premieres on Wednesday, 6 May 2026 at 9pm on BBC One. All episodes will be available as a box set on BBC iPlayer from 6 May.

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