The Amandaland Christmas special will air tonight

Joanna Lumley spoke about mortality earlier this year(Image: Jeff Spicer, Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Joanna Lumley is one of the nation’s favourite actresses, with a TV career spanning over six decades. The 79-year-old will return to our screens this evening for the Christmas special of Amandaland.

The award-winning star recently shared her thoughts on growing older, disclosing that being conscious of time passing actually energises her more. The celebrated 79-year-old actress and entertainer also confessed she frequently reflects on her own death. “As you near the top of the hill you suddenly think, ‘Gosh, there’s not all that amount of time left’,” she said in a conversation with My Weekly earlier this year.

“All kinds of my beloved friends are beginning to leave. My time must be coming quite soon and I don’t want to have wasted a minute of being on this beautiful planet.” Joanna’s zest for life is apparent as she continues to pack her work schedule with exciting projects.

In 2025, Joanna shone in the comedy series Amandaland(Image: Jeff Spicer, Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

This year, she shone in the comedy series Amandaland, a spin-off of the award-winning sitcom Motherland, produced for the BBC. Its Christmas special is set to air on BBC One from 9.15pm tonight (December 25), while season two will arrive in 2026.

Joanna has also recently appeared in the Netflix drama Fool Me Once, and a three-part ITV travel documentary in which she explores Europe’s Danube River. Yet, things haven’t always been easy for the actress.

The star previously revealed to Vernon Kay on BBC 2 that she’s battled with prosopagnosia for years, which makes recognising faces extremely difficult.

“I’ve got this weird thing with faces, I’ve got a face blindness,” she said a few years ago on the Tracks of My Years podcast, the Express reports. “It’s called prosopagnosia.

“I have to know who people are, I have to know in advance. I always say, ‘Please tell me who’s going to be there’, then I can match the name to the thing. I mean, lots of people say, ‘Oh, but you meet so many people’, it’s not to do with that, it’s completely different from that.

“It’s followed me and I never knew what it was. And I’d try a test. I’d look at somebody and then I would shut my eyes and see if I could see their face in my head. And I couldn’t.”

The 79-year-old previously shared that she struggles with prosopagnosia (Image: Pool, Getty Images)

The NHS explains that prosopagnosia often extends beyond recognising faces, causing challenges in identifying gender, age, and distinguishing between objects such as vehicles or animals. Sadly, no cure exists for this condition, though noting unique features may help make it more manageable.

Official online NHS guidance explains: “You’ll still see the parts of a face normally, but all faces may look the same to you. It affects people differently. Some people may not be able to tell the difference between strangers or people they do not know well. Others may not recognise the faces of friends and family, or even their own face.”

Despite these struggles, Joanna hasn’t let prosopagnosia to limit her success. The 79-year-old’s distinguished acting career spans numerous memorable performances across television and cinema, including The New Avengers and Sapphire & Steel, as well as Absolutely Fabulous, Finding Alice, and Motherland.

In the ’60s, she was notably one of Ken Barlow’s first girlfriends in Coronation Street. And, on the big screen, she even worked alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Joanna is married to Stephen Barlow, a conductor. She also enjoys a rich family life as the proud mother of Jamie, and is a grandmother to two, Alice and Emily.