Entertainment

Joanna Lumley planning trip to France this summer

The actress, 74, said she feels she has to trust assurances that public transport is safe.
The actress, 74, said she feels she has to trust assurances that public transport is safe. The actress, 74, said she feels she has to trust assurances that public transport is safe.

Joanna Lumley has said she is going to “put my trust” in public transport being safe and fly to France this summer with her husband.

The Absolutely Fabulous actress, 74, had to cancel a documentary about the spice route due to the coronavirus crisis but said she is now planning to travel again.

Asked if she intends to go abroad this summer, she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “Yes I am, I’m going to go to France because that’s not in lockdown anymore. And we’re going to go safely.

BFI and Radio Times Television Festival
BFI and Radio Times Television Festival Joanna Lumley said she will travel to France over the summer (Ian West/PA)

“We’re going to fly there actually, because I’ve got to put my trust, if they say public transport is safe, it’s safe and off we go. So my husband and I are going to do that.

“We had to cancel our enormous travel piece this year which was going to be, which was the documentary about the spice route, but I’m doing a lovely tour around England.”

Lumley added she has been revisiting her previous documentaries and making new programmes based on footage that did not make the final edits.

She said: “In this lockdown period I’ve been looking through my documentaries and of course for masses of the tapes, masses of old sequences, we couldn’t fit them in because literally the programmes can’t contain so much footage.

“So I’ve put together three programmes of the most extraordinary stories which we’ve had to leave out of journeys – Trans-Siberia, Mongolia, Japan, China, Iran, Uzbekistan, everywhere. We got together all the stories which we had to miss, that’s coming out at the end of July. So it’s been a busy time.”