Honestly, if you only know Joanna Lumley as the champagne-swilling, chain-smoking Patsy Stone, you’re only seeing about ten percent of the picture. It’s the role that defined a decade—maybe even a generation of comedy—but Lumley’s trajectory is actually one of the strangest and most resilient in British show business.
She didn't just appear out of thin air in a cloud of cigarette smoke in 1992.
Before the beehive and the Bollinger, she was a Bond girl. She was a high-kicking secret agent. She was even a recurring character on Coronation Street long before anyone thought of her as a comedic powerhouse. Looking back at Joanna Lumley movies and shows, you start to see a pattern of someone who refused to be put in a box, even when the industry tried its hardest to keep her there as "the pretty one."
From Bond Girl to Purdey: The Action Years
Most people forget she was in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). It was a tiny role—one of the "Blofeld girls"—but it set the stage for her being cast as the "English Rose" type. But Joanna had more grit than the studios gave her credit for.
Then came The New Avengers.
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This was 1976. She played Purdey. You have to understand how massive that haircut was—the "Purdey bob" became a legitimate cultural phenomenon. She wasn't just a sidekick to Patrick Macnee; she was doing her own stunts, utilizing a background in ballet to deliver these high-impact martial arts kicks that looked elegant and lethal at the same time. She basically invented the "action-ballerina" trope decades before it became a Hollywood staple.
The Absolute Pivot to Patsy Stone
By the late 80s, things could have gone quiet. Many actresses from that era found the roles drying up as they hit their 40s. Then Jennifer Saunders came along with a script for a pilot called Absolutely Fabulous.
The story goes that Lumley actually thought Saunders hated her during their first meeting. She felt like a fish out of water. But she took the role of Patsy Stone and turned it into something grotesque, hilarious, and strangely lovable.
It wasn't just the drinking. It was the way she stood—that slight lean, the permanent squint through the smoke. She took a character that should have been a villain and made her an icon of liberation. If you look at the run of the show from 1992 through the various specials and the 2016 movie, you see an actress who isn't afraid to look "ugly" or "messy" for a laugh. That’s rare.
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Beyond the Sitcom: Surprising Dramatic Turns
If you want to see her actually act (without the slapstick), you have to go to the deeper cuts.
- Sensitive Skin (2005): This is a forgotten gem. It’s a melancholy, sharp look at aging in London. It’s the polar opposite of Ab Fab.
- The Wolf of Wall Street (2013): Martin Scorsese specifically wanted her for Aunt Emma. That scene on the park bench with Leonardo DiCaprio? That’s pure class. She out-charismas one of the biggest stars in the world without breaking a sweat.
- Fool Me Once (2024): More recently, she popped up in this Harlan Coben thriller on Netflix. She plays the icy, upper-class matriarch Judith Burkett. It’s a reminder that she can do "menacing" just as well as she does "hilarious."
The Travelogue Queen: Why We Watch Her Wander
Somewhere in the last fifteen years, Joanna Lumley movies and shows shifted into a new category: the "Joanna Lumley Explores..." genre.
It started with Girl Friday in 1994, where she was left on a desert island, but it exploded with her Nile, Silk Road, and India series. There’s something about her voice. It’s like warm honey mixed with a bit of steel.
She isn't a "presenter" in the traditional sense; she’s an enthusiast. Whether she’s hugging a mascot seal in Japan or looking at the Northern Lights, she treats the viewer like a friend she’s brought along for the ride. She’s authentic. She’s not afraid to get her hair messy or look genuinely moved by a person's story. In a world of over-produced travel content, her documentaries feel like a long, interesting lunch with a very well-traveled aunt.
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What’s Happening Now in 2026?
As we move through 2026, she isn't slowing down. She recently starred in the BBC’s Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the Tower, directed by Mark Gatiss. It’s a chilling, inter-war era piece that shows she’s leaning back into her love for the slightly macabre and the theatrical.
She’s also been working on Amandaland, a spin-off of the hit show Motherland, playing Felicity. It’s that perfect blend of high-society snobbery and biting wit that she does better than anyone else alive.
Navigating Her Massive Catalog
If you're looking to dive into her work, don't just stick to the hits.
- Watch The New Avengers to see the 70s style and the physical acting.
- Binge the first three seasons of Absolutely Fabulous for the peak of British comedy.
- Find Sensitive Skin for a bit of emotional depth.
- Check out Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure for the best of her travel work.
The reality is that Joanna Lumley’s career works because she never stopped being curious. She’s a dame, an activist (the Gurkha Justice Campaign wouldn't have happened without her), and a genuinely fearless performer. She’s proof that you can be "the face" of one generation and still be completely relevant to the next one by just being willing to try something weird.
To truly appreciate her range, your next step should be tracking down a copy of A Rather English Marriage (1998). It’s a TV movie she did with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay. It’s quiet, it’s heartbreaking, and it proves that underneath the comedy beehive, there is a dramatic actress of the highest caliber who can hold her own against the giants of the stage and screen. It’s currently available on various streaming archives and is the perfect entry point into her more serious "actor's actor" era.