March 1995 issue (Spring, #2) of the "Jane Asher's Magazine".

JANE ENTERNAINS JOANNA LUMLEY

It’s always a treat to meet up with old friends and exchange news – so I was particularly pleased when Joanna visited me for a cup of tea and a chat at my tearoom
 and cake shop in Chelsea.


I have known the beautiful and talented Joanna Lumley as a friend for many years, but since her career has gone into overdrive recently, she has become so busy 
that it seeks increasingly difficult for us to get together. So I was delighted when she found time to come and have a cup of tea in my tearoom, and as for a long time 
I’ve been threatening to design a cake specially for her, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.


Jo is one of those people who is just as charming, witty and glamorous off screen as she is on, and we behave like two schoolgirls when we get together – it’s very 
refreshing to the soul for two forty-eight-year-old mothers of grown-up children to collapse in heaps of giggles. And it’s not only when we meet that we tease each 
other – for a long time we have kept up a sporadic but continuing correspondence consisting of derogatory postcards sent to each other at important moments. Our 
birthdays are just three weeks apart in April, and as the older of the two I can always be sure of receiving a sympathetic card showing immense concern about my 
great age, sometimes written in capitals to help my ancient eyesight. I, in return, send my condolences for her immaturity and lack of experience and offer to give 
her a helping hand in her career, or send her a few tips for life acquired in those vital extra three weeks.


We’ve only worked together once – on stage in ‘Blithe Spirit’, where Jo played the beautiful ghost Elvira – and it was as much fun as I had always thought it would 
be. After a few months in the West End, the inevitable little tricks started to emerge among the actors to relieve the potential boredom: some nights an unspoken 
agreement would mean that whichever player was facing upstage (away from the audience) would have to keep their eyes crossed – very difficult for the other actor 
to keep a straight face – or perhaps a scene would have to be played standing on one leg. All these silly games had to be done without the awareness of the 
audience, so as not to spoil their evening. But as well as the fun and games, working with Jo was a very satisfying experience, as she takes her work very seriously 
and cares about getting things just right. Her extraordinary success over the last couple of years has opened up all sorts of avenues to her; when we had tea, she 
was not long returned from America, where she has been working on a new Walt Disney film, and her recently announced OBE couldn’t have gone to a better 
person.


In private, she has always made me laugh more than anyone else I know; it’s a great treat for me that, with the advent of the series ‘Absolutely Fabulous’, her giant 
talent for comedy is now recognised by the public. She is a woman who is truly in her prime: an extraordinarily successful career, a wonderfully happy private life 
with her husband – conductor Stephen Barlow – and far more than her share of beauty and glamour. As her old, wise friend, I am very proud of her.