Amandaland: The Hottest Showbiz Gossip of the Week
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Amandaland, the hit comedy series, has been making waves with its second season, which launched last week and received rave reviews from critics. The show follows the journey of Amanda, a former “Queen Bee” from the affluent area of Chiswick who now finds herself navigating life as a single mother in the less glamorous South Harlesden, which she affectionately calls ‘SoHa’.
Holly Walsh, the writer behind Amandaland, has hinted at the possibility of a third series, suggesting that there are many ideas in the pipeline. Speaking at the British Academy Television Awards, Holly expressed her excitement about the show’s success, particularly after it won the Scripted Comedy BAFTA. She praised Joanna Lumley’s performance, saying that she made everyone “funnier” and that it was an incredible experience to watch her perform.
Lucy Punch, who plays Amanda, has been lauded for her performance in the second season. She previously portrayed the character in all three seasons of the original show, Motherland, before bringing her back to life in January last year with a Christmas special. Lucy’s portrayal of Amanda has been described as brilliant, with critics noting her ability to bring the character to life with ease.
The show has also been praised for its sharp writing and clever humor. Reviewers have compared Amanda to iconic comedy characters such as David Brent from The Office and Alan Partridge, highlighting her cringeworthy lack of self-awareness, arrogance, and hidden insecurities.
Amandaland: The Reviews
RADIO TIMES – Rating: FOUR STARS
Every episode is stuffed with memorable one-liners 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.
INDEPENDENT – Rating: FOUR STARS
The real housewife of SoHa is back. After proving that she could stand on her own two Kurt Geiger-clad feet as the centre of a Motherland spin-off, Lucy Punch’s immaculately coiffed, endearingly self-centered mum-slash-influencer Amanda has returned for a well-deserved second season.
METRO – Rating: THREE STARS
Elsewhere, the season fell foul to more forced gags and clunky joke-making than I would have liked, making for an awkward feel for a few of the scenes, especially early on. The season does seem to hit a stride as it goes along, however, with later episodes working better.
THE GUARDIAN – Rating: FOUR STARS
Lucy Punch is brilliant as this comedy’s delusional, narcissistic lead and Joanna Lumley is magnetic as her mum. It’s not as delectably spiky as Motherland, but the comforting vibes are what make it worth watching.
THE TIMES – Rating: THREE STARS
It’s still very sharply written and cleverly observed, and Punch is brilliant in the role — the head mic and TED talk-style jog onto the stage were perfect, as was Amanda talking up her ‘Hong Kong Shanghai’ financing (she got a three-grand loan from HSBC). Joanna Lumley remains absolutely fabulous as her mother. But we’ve been here before.
THE STANDARD – Rating: FOUR STARS
This is a show that manages hypocrisy and delusions with a sweet touch that makes it a warm, impeccably turned-out joy.
FINANCIAL TIMES – Rating: FOUR STARS
Amandaland is best watched with a forgiving eye. Think about it too hard, and you’ll notice that the vast majority of its jokes centre on millennials and boomers misunderstanding the internet, flubbing modern acronyms and being perplexed by what the younger generation is talking about. Still, with its strong cast (Joanna Lumley remains on fine form as Amanda’s acidic mother) and its deceptively sweet mood, it already feels like a long-familiar comedy that is extremely comfortable in its own skin.
DAILY MAIL – Rating: FIVE STARS
As Amandaland returned for a second series, anything less than comic excellence was bound to be a disappointment. We needn’t have worried. This show is bursting with invention, so full of possibilities that it cramps three or four sources of fun into half an hour and plunders all of them gleefully.
THE TELEGRAPH – Rating: FIVE STARS
‘So you post a picture of yourself eating cake and that’s a job?’ asked a baffled Joanna Lumley in the new series of Amandaland (BBC One), neatly summing up the absurdity of being a social media influencer. Luckily for us, it’s a job with endless comic potential, and this second series overflows with jokes about Amanda (Lucy Punch) trying and failing to become a luxury content creator. It remains the BBC’s best sitcom by a country mile.
Critical Acclaim and Audience Reception
The Guardian’s Rachel Aroesti wrote: ‘Amanda slots neatly into a lineage of British comedy icons; file her next to the delusional, narcissistic, indefatigable likes of Alan Partridge and David Brent.’
The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky joined in the praise, with four stars: ‘It’s relatively straightforward comic fodder, but the jokes are sharp and sometimes unexpectedly dark enough to puncture the cosiness (“Have you been DBS checked?” Amanda’s colleague at her “co-lab” asks her, before she promptly spits back: “Women can’t be paedophiles, Daniel!”). And Punch, with her huge smile and doe eyes, manages to make even Amanda’s absurdities and insecurities endearing.’
Huw Fullerton for Radio Times wrote: ‘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.’
The Financial Times’ Rebecca Nicholson said the show ‘continued to delight’: ‘Amandaland is best watched with a forgiving eye… Think about it too hard, and you’ll notice that the vast majority of its jokes centre on millennials and boomers misunderstanding the internet, flubbing modern acronyms and being perplexed by what the younger generation is talking about… Still, with its strong cast (Joanna Lumley remains on fine form as Amanda’s acidic mother) and its deceptively sweet mood, it already feels like a long-familiar comedy that is extremely comfortable in its own skin.’
One of the only negative reviews of the show came with a three star rating from Asyia Iftikhar at Metro, who mused: ‘The season fell foul to more forced gags and clunky joke-making than I would have liked… [This made for] for an awkward feel for a few of the scenes, especially early on. The season does seem to hit a stride as it goes along.’
