‘Mischievous and measured, Joanna Lumley gives us a remarkable portrait of a groovy life…a life astonishingly rich in experience’ THE TIMES
‘Captures perfectly the mixture of poshness and larkiness that has captivated Joanna Lumley’s audiences…Joanna writes beautifully, managing to be both thoughtful and amusing’ DAILY MAIL
‘An actress with an extraordinarily varied life that has taken her from Kashmir to Kent, from Bond girl to Ab Fab. It’s all here in this gloriously illustrated, entertaining memoir, that’s packed with personal photos and reminiscences’ WOMAN & HOME
Joanna Lumley is one of Britain’s undisputed national treasures. A single mum, iconic actress, voiceover artist and author, best known for her roles in ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS and THE NEW AVENGERS, she is a former model and Bond girl, a human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign, and is now considered a ‘national treasure’ of Nepal as well as the UK.
She has won two BAFTA awards, but it is the sheer diversity of her life that has made her so compelling a personality – early years in Kashmir and Malaya, growing up in Kent, then a photographic model before becoming an actress, appearing in a huge range of roles, and many documentaries including those on on the Northern Lights, Bhutan and the Nile.
‘Lumley has done it all, from sex kitten and TV star to activist for the Gurkhas. Read about it here.’ – No.2 of The Independent’s ‘Ten Best New Memoirs’ INDEPENDENT
‘Captures perfectly the mixture of poshness and larkiness that has captivated Joanna Lumley’s audiences…Joanna writes beautifully, managing to be both thoughtful and amusing’ DAILY MAIL
‘An actress with an extraordinarily varied life that has taken her from Kashmir to Kent, from Bond girl to Ab Fab. It’s all here in this gloriously illustrated, entertaining memoir, that’s packed with personal photos and reminiscences’ WOMAN & HOME
Joanna Lumley is one of Britain’s undisputed national treasures. A single mum, iconic actress, voiceover artist and author, best known for her roles in ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS and THE NEW AVENGERS, she is a former model and Bond girl, a human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign, and is now considered a ‘national treasure’ of Nepal as well as the UK.
She has won two BAFTA awards, but it is the sheer diversity of her life that has made her so compelling a personality – early years in Kashmir and Malaya, growing up in Kent, then a photographic model before becoming an actress, appearing in a huge range of roles, and many documentaries including those on on the Northern Lights, Bhutan and the Nile.
‘Lumley has done it all, from sex kitten and TV star to activist for the Gurkhas. Read about it here.’ – No.2 of The Independent’s ‘Ten Best New Memoirs’ INDEPENDENT
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Reviews
A full-page photograph at the begining of Joanna Lumley's glossy memoir shows the nation's darling in full evening dress, wearing a glittering tiara...crimson sash and gold star...The portrait captures perfectly the mixture of poshness and larkiness that has captivated Joanna Lumley's audiences...Tempting as it is to concentrate on the wealth of photographs, it would be a pity to ignore the linking text. Joanna writes beautifully, managing to be both thoughtful and amusing.
Lumley has done it all, from sex kitten and TV star to activist for the Gurkhas. Read about it here.' - No.2 of The Independent's 'Ten Best New Memoirs
Mischievous and measured, Joanna Lumley gives us a remarkable portrait of a groovy life...Lots of facts, little hyperbole and a pervasive sense of self effacement, a very British talent for understatement and self-deprecation and (and this, in an age of vomit-into-the-void celebrity culture is perhaps what stands out and pleases the most) restraint...that makes this such a refreshing read...she gives us the facts - and photographs - from a life astonishingly rich in experience.
She's the glamorous age-defying star of stage and screen, who is famous as Patsy from Ab Fab yet a passionate human rights campaigner. But as her autobiography reveals, Joana's life has seen her fight through poverty and being a single mum
Her beauty does not fade and her unquenchable spirit for adventure seems more apparent than ever. Joanna Lumley is, for many, something of a national treasure. In this new illustrated memoir, we trot through her childhood in Kashmir...to her days of modelling in the Swinging Sixties and her move into acting. Luckily for fans, Lumley is a committed hoarder so there is a wealth of fantastic photographs and press cuttings to feast upon.
An actress with an extraordinarily varied life that has taken her from Kashmir to kent, from Bond girl to Ab Fab. It's all here in this gloriously illustrated, entertaining memoir, that's packed with personal photos and reminiscences.
There is a Joanna Lumley for everyone: there's beautiful angelic Joanna, hot sexy Joanna, Kick-ass "Purdey" Joanna, heroic single mum Joanna, comic genius Joanna and crusading Gurkha-saver Joanna. And thanks to her habit of insanely hoarding everything from bales of cloth to old wrapping paper, she has pictures of every incarnation, which are lushly reproduced in her immensely fun scrapbook-memoir, Absolutely.
Joanna Lumley's Absolutely is what Alan Sugar would probably call "a breath of fresh air in a world full of c***". Like Winner and Sugar, she has published memoirs before, and so this is a picture book, with words - thousands of pictures of Lumley as a child, a model, an actress, and as her dark ego Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous....She writes beautifully, too; unlike the authors above, she does not scream into the Dictaphone but respects her readers enough to compose sentences and read back over them when she has finished.