Second Helpings - Joanna Lumley

We’re dishing up a real treat on Second Helpings this week - she’d been on the hit list since day one and finally we had her! The one the only Dame Joanna Lumley popped over to Clapham for a vegetable pie & some poached pears and it was quite frankly absolutely fabulous. Joanna talks to us about growing up in India being addicted to limes her love of the Queen & cocktail nights at home. Speaking with experience she talks us through her desert island meal & being Patsy Stone. Whadda woman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:34Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Second Helpings. I'm Jessie Weir, and I'm here with my mom, Lenny. And we are offering up a wonderful guest from way back when. This week on Second Helpings, we have Dame Joanna Lumley.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:48Jessie Ware?

  This was a great one.

• 1:49Speaker 03

  This was, it was like being with royalty. She was the most gracious woman, the most exciting woman, the most self-effacing but most gorgeous-looking woman I've ever met.

• 2:02Jessie Ware?

  We recorded it in Clapham back in March 2022. It was season 13.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  And it was vegetarian, I remember.

• 2:10Jessie Ware?

  I had to record the first part of the interview because producer Alice was stuck in terrible traffic.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 2:17Jessie Ware?

  And I thought, I can see where this is going to go, and it's going to go sideways.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  It went all right, darling.

• 2:21Jessie Ware?

  It went all right. Joanna was fantastic.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  If your singing career goes down the ch-.

• 2:25Jessie Ware?

  I can produce, yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Produce podcasts.

• 2:29Jessie Ware?

  Joanna's a vegetarian, so Lenny had to try out a new recipe. Do you remember what you did?

• 2:34Speaker 03

  I think it was my friend Anne's deep pan pizza with pine nuts. But I don't think it stayed together very well, it fell apart a bit.

• 2:42Jessie Ware?

  It was a vegetable pie and for dessert you did roasted plums. And at the time Joanna, she had a new show out, it was called Cities of the World. Basically, it was her having a jolly good time in the great cities of Rome, Paris and Berlin. Fellow South Londoner too.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:58Jessie Ware?

  Here she is, Jane Joanna Lumley on second albums.

• 3:09Jessie Ware?

  You still drink, Paulie?

• 3:11Speaker 04

  I do.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  By golly, I do.

• 3:16Jessie Ware?

  Well, that's how we shall begin.

• 3:17Speaker 04

  This is defiant.

• 3:18Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you're so, you don't live too far away.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  No, we, we, it's, traffic was weirdly heavy tonight, but I live in Stockwell, so that's really close. Really close by.

• 3:28Jessie Ware?

  Cheers.

• 3:29Speaker 04

  Cheers darling.

• 3:34Jessie Ware?

  How are you?

• 3:35Speaker 04

  How, how am I? I'm just fine. I've worked all the way through, because I worked all the way through. But my husband's a musician, Jessie.

• 3:44Jessie Ware?

  Oh, is he?

• 3:45Speaker 04

  He's a conductor, he's a composer, he's a pianist.

• 3:47Jessie Ware?

  Rubbish for him, right?

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Everything went bang, shut, because all he does is performing art. So he did a lot of composing, finishing bits he'd started and putting himself to it and just slogging on, you know? Because a lot of music is slog, as you know. Doing it. In our profession, we have a saying which is stay in the boat. Don't just suddenly go, oh, this is really hot. Hang on in there. We're bumping over waters, but hang on, be, stay in the boat. And then guess what? The water will come calm and we'll still be there. What you're not to do is to disappear.

• 4:17Jessie Ware?

  Have you had bumpy waters?

• 4:18Speaker 04

  Not now, but early, early days, early days. Bumpy, bumpy.

• 4:22Jessie Ware?

  Did you grow up in England? Or were you, your father was in?

• 4:27Speaker 04

  Eventually, eventually. He was, I was born in India. My father's of the Gherkas.

• 4:30Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  And my mother was the daughter of a diplomat who was out in India. And who had Tibet and Bhutan and Sikkim and, and had been before in Persia, as it was, Iran, as it is now. And and everybody was born in, he was born in Gazipur and my father, my father was born in Lahore. I was born in Kashmir and my sister was born in Abbottabad. So we were all born over there. And then the regiment moved, India came, had its independence. We moved off to Hong Kong. And then we moved from Hong Kong to Malaysia and lived there. So I came back to England when I was eight. And now England's my home. But before then, because my parents have both been brought up in India. We didn't have a home here. We didn't, so although England was called home, it wasn't.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  We didn't have a home, you know, we didn't know where we came from.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Did you feel, do you still feel a strong connection with India?

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Yes, I do. Well, India and, I've been back many times and the, and the, and the sort of tropics of the, of the Far East. The smell of, I don't know, wet, laterite earth after rain and the sound of jungle birds and things and the dark, dark skies and great thunderstorms. Those are the things I, when there's a thunderstorm, I open all the windows and hope for lightning. What, can you remember your first food memory? I can, I presume it must be a. It would have been Far, it would have been Far East. It would have been with the armas in Hong Kong. And it would have always had rice and ginger and garlic and probably soy sauce. And that still is my comfort food.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 6:03Speaker 04

  And do you, do you add anything to it? Do you have any little extra? I mean, sometimes it's really nice. I do something like, I mean, put sunflower seeds onto it to give it a little bit of a crunch or crunch. Sometimes you can, sometimes our Feng, one of our beloved cooks. Um, Ah is the kind of honorary, people say, oh, you mustn't call it, it's really insulting, but Ah was Mrs. So it's like saying Mrs Feng. Um, she used to make that rice, but then at the very last minute, she'd crack an egg through the rice and fry rice, do it like that. And then at the end shred lettuce. And just as it wilted, it would be tumbled and put on your plate. It's called chow fan. I adored it.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Oh, that sounds great. And what was, what was the seasoning?

• 6:46Speaker 04

  The seasoning was ginger, garlic, soy sauce.

• 6:48Jessie Ware?

  And that was just always.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Anything, chilies or whatever, I mean, anything, far easterny seasoning.

• 6:53Jessie Ware?

  Can you, can you take a lot of heat then, do you think, or you're not into heat?

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Some, some. I once took a mouthful of green chilies. The hot, hot, hot green chilies, thinking they were green beans. I was on a trek through Bhutan. And we came and I'd been, vegetarians get pretty slim pickings on these feasts, you know. And so I saw what I thought was a dish of green beans. And I put a whole crunch to hold off my mouth. And I was completely silent for about twenty minutes, which was a relief to everybody. And my eyes were streaming and I couldn't speak. And I felt that my ears would explode.

• 7:27Jessie Ware?

  Oh, no. Did they not offer you any yogurt or milk? No, they were just like, suck it up, Joanna.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  They didn't, because it was one of those buffets where you hurt yourself. So it was my fault.

• 7:35Jessie Ware?

  Did you cook a lot of egg fried rice in the pandemic?

• 7:40Speaker 04

  We ate so much and we got so fat.

• 7:43Jessie Ware?

  I know.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  We just stuffed up. We thought.

• 7:45Jessie Ware?

  And you have that.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Boxes delivered, didn't they? Wonderful things. I can't tell you anything. And we, and my husband's a good cook. Musicians often are cooks. Did you know that?

• 7:55Jessie Ware?

  Well, if, did you watch Pretend It's a City, the Fran Lebowitz thing on Netflix?

• 8:01Speaker 04

  No, I didn't.

• 8:02Jessie Ware?

  So good.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  So good, go on.

• 8:03Jessie Ware?

  And she says that she's kind of, her two favourite people are chefs and musicians because of like the creative. She's obsessed with them. And she says there's like lots to, yeah, they're quite alike. I'd like to say, yeah, we're just, you know.

• 8:15Speaker 04

  You're a good cook. You're a good cook. I think, I wonder if it's something to do with, I don't know. Something musical, food is musical. Maybe food is a bit musical. And maybe you've got to have music in your soul to be a good cook.

• 8:28Jessie Ware?

  That's, I, I love that.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  I don't think I have got music in my soul, darling.

• 8:31Jessie Ware?

  Well, you, you, you, you gave it to me with.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Okay, then it was.

• 8:35Jessie Ware?

  Dusty and Aretha, Manhattan Transfer.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:38Jessie Ware?

  Um, so, so your husband's a good chef. So what was he cooking? What was the kind of go to? That he would, or, or the, or the.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  Or what we could get, because at the time, do you remember all the queuing at the mornings and wearing masks and looking on empty shelves and things? But we're quite good. Because I'm a vegetarian and he isn't. We could have a real variety of things. And so sometimes he'd cook something for himself or whatever. But he, he's, we're both, I would have thought, simple. So any recipe that takes six hours. I wouldn't do.

• 9:09Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  I'm too lazy.

• 9:11Jessie Ware?

  Also, I can't imagine many vegetarian dishes take six hours. Like, that's a slow-cooked, you know, lamb.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  Too slow, exactly. So, slow-cooked lamb and things like that, he loves. Have you been a vegetarian for a long time? For ages, darling. About easily forty years. Maybe forty-five years now. What made you become? Suddenly thought, you know how you suddenly think maybe you'd give up smoking or drinking or something? Okay. And I suddenly thought, I'm not going to do this no more. I'm going to eat meat or fish. No more, finished, gone. But I'm not a vegan. And people say that's the next step, but I think it's. I think it's hard without cheese and dough, isn't it?

• 9:47Jessie Ware?

  I mean, it used to be so difficult to be a vegetarian, right? No.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  And always travelling in the Middle and Far East, it's never difficult, because they never expect you to have to stuff yourself with meat all the time. They'll have meat, but usually those sort of picking foods and Indian foods and Far Eastern foods. A lot of them, a lot of the, of the cuisine of the, of poor countries is the food I love best. And it's because it doesn't depend on meat. If you think they've always got a basis, like. Initially, it might be pasta or pizza base, I shouldn't be hitting the mic. And then there's rice, and then there's all these different things which are the bases. And only if you're very rich do you get some meat or fish on to it. The rest of the time, they do clever things with beautiful vegetables and spices and herbs and. In the end, you don't miss anything.

• 10:32Jessie Ware?

  So, I mean, we, we've got you over for dinner. Mum has cooked a vegetarian, uh, meal. Mum gets very terrified about cooking vegetarian meals because she's such a, she's such a meat eater.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:45Jessie Ware?

  So she's terrified, yes.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:47Jessie Ware?

  And so I've had to hold her hand well for the time that I was here.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  I love you for doing this.

• 10:51Jessie Ware?

  But, but, but it's, do you find that people. Struggle to know what to cook? Do you feel like they kind of over fuss when you go for dinner?

• 10:58Speaker 04

  And I sometimes say, I'll eat everything except the meat bits. If there are potatoes and greens or stuff or a salad, that's fine.

• 11:05Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, but don't, do you quite like it when someone makes the effort, though?

• 11:08Speaker 04

  It's so charming. And people more and more are finding how interesting it is cooking.

• 11:12Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  But non-meat meals, plant, what they call plant-based meals, you can get some good stuff.

• 11:17Jessie Ware?

  So, so which ones are your recipe books, um, that you go to?

• 11:20Speaker 04

  I don't read recipe books.

• 11:22Jessie Ware?

  Don't you?

• 11:22Speaker 04

  No. I'm not, I don't know, no, it's just, I think they're lovely. I love them, I find them quite meditative. I think they're very inspiring too. Yeah. But, um. So where do you get your inspiration? Well, I'm so dull as a cook, I'm a dull cook. Are you? Yeah, I think I am. I mean, they're full of spices and people tuck into them and go yum yum yum. But the truth is that I didn't do anything very clever. But that's because you're not reading bloody recipe books, Joanna. I know, but recipe books will always say marinate for seven days. With one sprig of something, you know, and I won't do that, you know.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  Elizabeth, I needed marinating.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  I like the idea, Jess, of having some skills which will take you through, if you know what I mean. Know how to make a white sauce, know how to make a something or an omelette or know, know the basics and then from that you can, you can push, push, push, push, push, push and extend it. Then you think of different tastes and flavours you'd like. I love soup, I think soup is.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Oh, I love soup too.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  And I think the old kind of housewife, French housewife's way of making soup, having a, a pot and chucking stuff into it. It's good.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  You've just got this new travel programme.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. When you ate in that. I never stop eating, I, I never, I mean, also, they always make me eat on the film, they say, and here, Jo, Joanna, you'll be going over and helping cook and then eat some of the stuff. It's no hardship for me, but this is why I'm not as svelte as I would have been. So I have, in the three programmes which are about Berlin, Paris and Rome, I think Rome is the first one going out. I was with people who cooked, so for instance, in Rome, which goes out first, I met one of the Italian pizza chefs who's kind of whiz, he's a star. Eh, he looks like Brando. He's got the temperament of Gordon Ramsay and he's a brilliant chef.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  And he makes these pizza bases, which he, he does, he puts almost anything, he puts things like um chicory and honey and nuts and chickpea sauce on. I can't tell you and you go, really? And then you eat it and you go, this is out of this world. So he's very daring and I said to him, you know, a lot of people are purists about what you can put on pizza. And I said to him, what do you think, some people put um pineapple and things like that on pizza, what do you think of that? He said, I don't care. He said, if they want it, they shall have it. Pizza is for everybody, they should eat everything they want. So that was rather heartening.

• 13:45Jessie Ware?

  Yes, I do, I do like pineapple on my pizza.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  Do you?

• 13:49Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I do. I'm sorry, I know it's like.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  It's not, because he said it's not, and he's a Roman chef, he's a Roman chef, so he doesn't.

• 13:56Jessie Ware?

  Fine. But how, how was it filming that? I mean, it must have been lovely to get out of bloody London.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  The crew, oh, well, it was divine. Filming that actual sequence, the crew were literally drooling. So in the end, I had to say, I'm sorry, are the crew allowed to eat some of this? And they just fell like wolves and, but getting out of London, I had been filming during the lockdown because I'd done a programme called Home Sweet Home, three pro, three episodes about England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Looking at all the beautiful places we've got here, even if it is lockdown, even if you can't go away and you've got to have a staycation. Look, there's heavenly stuff and darling people and great food and interesting, beautiful things to see. Um, but going abroad was.

• 14:36Jessie Ware?

  That was great. It felt like you were alive.

• 14:40Speaker 04

  It's sort of, you feel you're living again. You finally go, it hasn't, I don't know, it's a sense that our lives were ended and we'd become little institutionalized people. Even if it was a happy prison, we were in a prison.

• 14:50Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. So Joanna, the podcast, I feel like you, you kind of get the gist, you're, I mean, everyone's gonna love having you in their ears. We ask every guest what their last supper would be. So it was, it's a starter, main, purd, drink of choice. You can think about this, you can mull it over, we've got time to come back to it. Have a little think, don't feel pressured. And it could be a last supper before you go on a desert island for a year, or it can be.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Goodnight nurse.

• 15:18Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  But if it was the very last supper, you'd have to be in pretty good form. You mustn't be all croaking over there on two and everything.

• 15:29Jessie Ware?

  So let's, let's say you're healthy and.

• 15:30Speaker 04

  So let's just, just before I'm going away to the, the, you remember I've been on a desert island with no food?

• 15:35Jessie Ware?

  Have you?

• 15:35Speaker 04

  I was cast away. I was cast away ages ago, it was before any of these cast away. What, before like, sh- wait, hold on, are we talking pre kind of? It was in about nineteen ninety-three. Oh, wow, before shipwreck, before the cast away, before the island. Before Love Island. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was called Girl Friday, I was Girl Friday, the Guinea pig. I had some knives, some sacking. Um, they gave me a pound of rice for the, for nine days and that's all. And that was it. What did you do? Stuffed, pretty much stuffed. Did they help? They said, they said of the island, it was a, it was a desert island, so there's nobody on it. And there's no garlic or ginger. No garlic, there's nothing on it, except limes. And I became addicted to limes, because with my little bit of

• 16:21Speaker 04

  rice, my tiny shell, I had no knives and forks, there was no toothbrush, no mirror, no comb, no soap. Nothing, I had nothing, I lived like an animal. How did you do it? Because I thought it'd be quite fun, I was doing patsy at the same time. Right, so it was a good old contrast, yeah. Lovely contrast. And are you glad you did it? Yes. I mean, you survived. I had rice, that was good. Oh, and did you have to make the rice? Did you have to like, do like flint, uh, what's it, you know, when you strike up, did you have to do all that stuff? Flint. And we'd had a late monsoon, so the wood was wet, so it took forever to get a little fire going. Did you cry? No, I didn't cry, but it was, you're dedicated only to making fire, collecting wood.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  Your horizon go like this. But at the same time, all my senses changed, I could sense when the rain was coming, literally when the rain was going to come, I could sense when the tide was turning, when it stopped coming in and was going to go out again. I saw baby turtles hatching on the beach. I saw shooting stars, I saw flying foxes. I was on my own. What are flying foxes? Flying foxes are fruit bats. Here's your girl. Here's my girl, and now you're, well, you were already sounding fantastic. But the good thing was, this is the interesting thing, is that when you go without food for a long time, you begin to think, what? Because then, first of all, you're three days, you're hungry. No, for three days you're hungry and then you're not hungry at all, you lose your appetite. I can imagine.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  And what I longed for was crunchy things, so I remain addicted to lettuce. Lettuce. Lettuce, and anything that goes crunch, so celery, apples, things that go crunch. That you could get your teeth into. Crunch, crunch, and green. God, how lovely to see you. Poor Alice. She's here. The traffic just, it's a nightmare.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Nearly three hours.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Where did you come from?

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Hackney.

• 18:07Speaker 04

  Don't, it's, it's a nightmare.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  I've got gridlocked on Tower Bridge.

• 18:11Speaker 04

  I've done this before, you know, I did this when I was doing a play.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  I'd gone to see, um, Sunset Boulevard. Who was starring? It was Pat- Tula Clark, that long ago. You're kidding! And Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French and I went to see the matinee. I was in a play at the Hammersmith, um, the Lyric Hammersmith. It was The Letter, Somerset Modern Play, and I was the star of it. And I opened, I opened the play by firing six shots, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Then the lights came on, there I was with a smoking gun. That's how the play started, started at seven thirty. So you fitted in a matinee? We'd gone backstage, so we went to a matinee. God, you are rock and roll, aren't you, Joanna? No, this is Jennifer. You're coming, you're my plus one for N M A. I said, I'd better go off, she said, you've got to come back and say hello to Pet. I think you've got to do that, she knows we're in.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Pet? Pet. So we went backstage and Pet was great and it took a bit longer. How long was she there? I think she's got some age on her, darling. Yes. Anyway, anyway, anyway, we, we, we came back and it was a Friday afternoon. I think they were doing two shows, two on Friday, two on Saturday. It was a Friday and it was a downpour and I was coming along the Cromwell Road, absolutely static. I said, I can't do this, so I drove my car to the pavement. I went and knocked on the window of a man and mobile phones had just come in, and mobile phones the size of that little transistor radio. And there. Literally a brick.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're like a brick in your end.

• 19:32Speaker 04

  And I said, I'm sorry, Mr. Man speaking, you're a brick, can you please, um, help me? Because I'm going to be late for the show. And he said, here, you can borrow the phone. I said, no, you don't understand, A, I don't know how to do it, B, I can't remember the number of the theatre. So he had to find the number of the Lyric stage door, say to them, I've got a mad woman who's now knocking on my window, says she's going to be late for the show. So I'm so sorry. And I gave, I gave him pound coin, I said, I don't know what to pay you. He said, you don't know me. I said, here's your pound coin. And then I started to run and I ran to Gloucester Road Tube. I got in the Tube, I had no money. Oh. I didn't know how to do it. I said, you have to let me through, so I somehow got through. I got through and I ran and I think I made another person at the thing, at the.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Station, I said to somebody, you have to buy me a ticket, because I haven't bought a ticket and I don't know how to do it. And they went, oh, pric- so I gave them the money, I probably gave them twenty quid to get a ticket, anyway. The ticket eventually got out, Hammersmith, I began to run down that big King Street, or Something Street it's called. And waiting, white lipped at the door, because this was now quarter to eight, so the audience had been waiting for four to an hour. And I was supposed to have been there at five to seven. So I just ran straight in, nobody was speaking, everybody was very still, and very smooth like this, and I just ran straight through. They had my clothes there, I was ripping off clothes as I ran, I got into my nineteen thirties red dress. Hair, didn't matter, fuck it, put on to red lipstick, gave me the gun, I walked straight through the door, bang, bang, bang.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  And the cast, I mean, I tell you, the adrenaline was so huge that the play went, I think we lost twenty minutes from the play.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Oh, you have fun, don't you? The feeling of terror of being late is almost the worst thing in the world, me too.

• 21:29Jessie Ware?

  Now that Alice is here, and she's got a glass of champagne, she's got a glass of bolly. I'd like to properly, formally introduce our guest tonight, which is Dame Joanna Longley.

• 21:40Speaker 04

  I always forget that. You forget it, I introduce it all the time. Honestly, I'm so excited, I can't tell you, I can't tell you, it was the most unexpected thing in the world. I was the proud owner of an OBE, which we call an Obi-Wan Kenobi. But I had an OBE, and I thought, this is just like magic, nothing could be finer than this. And OBE doesn't usually lead, CBE, which is the step up from that, is the one that leads to being a dame or a knight. I always get mixed up with them. So MBE, OBE, CBE, that's the order they go. Oh, M is the first one? First one, then OBE is the second one, CBE is the next one, and then if you're lucky, you're nodding to the next.

• 22:20Jessie Ware?

  But like, did you start at MBE, or did you just go straight to OBE?

• 22:23Speaker 04

  That was nineteen ninety-five, which was fabulous, and it was incredibly nice and incredibly charming. So when this letter arrived on the fourth of December, so it was quite late. My husband wasn't there, because he was in Birmingham, and I opened this letter, which looked a little bit formal, oh god, there'll be something else, I've left out. Another ticket or something, a bill or something. And anyway, it said, your name has been for put forward for a D B E. And I burst into tears.

• 22:52Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Jessie, I burst into tears because it was such a shock. It was as though somebody.

• 22:55Jessie Ware?

  It's not like your agent rings you up or your manager goes.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  No.

• 22:58Jessie Ware?

  Joanna.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 22:59Jessie Ware?

  Baby, you're gonna be a star. You're gonna be a dome. It's not like that. You get a letter.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  You get a letter from.

• 23:05Jessie Ware?

  How interesting.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Well, from the honours committee.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  Do you think it was for your philanth- philanthropy for the Gurkhas or for your acting or?

• 23:15Speaker 04

  They said it was for drama, entertainment and charity.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Oh, well, that fantastic.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  So that was the kindest little trio.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  That's the best.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  I would never have accepted it for charity. Because I think if you do good things, that's up to you whether you want to or not, do you know what I mean? Um, and my O B E was given to me for services to drama or entertainment or whatever it was. But this, when they put drama and entertainment, I thought that was the kindest thing because it involves this.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  And it involves my documentaries and and my writing, things I write and stuff like that. That's good.

• 23:48Jessie Ware?

  Now, Mum.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Yes, darling.

• 23:50Jessie Ware?

  I'm feeling a little.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Do you think you need to eat? Are we sticking with the champagne, as they say on Virgin First Class?

• 23:56Jessie Ware?

  Do you like to?

• 23:57Speaker 03

  We've got white wine. We've got a very nice white wine. We've got some nice red wine. We're going to keep going.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  What would you, what would you drink and what are we eating?

• 24:06Speaker 03

  We're eating. I don't really know how to describe it.

• 24:09Jessie Ware?

  She's such a pro. She's set up.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Even know how to describe it. I have a very good friend called Anne Sweeney and she makes delicious food. And this is something she can, it's kind of a bit like a pizza, but it's not a pizza.

• 24:24Jessie Ware?

  It's not a pizza, Mum, at all.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  It's a pie in filo pastry.

• 24:27Jessie Ware?

  It's a, a filo pie.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  A filo pie with lots of veggie things. And then there's a beetroot salad with yogurt. And then there's an ordinary salad with, and there's some bread if you want some bread. I don't know what it's gonna be like.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  I think a glass of red would be divine. I'd love that.

• 24:43Jessie Ware?

  I like the, I like the decisiveness, Joanna.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  It looked as though I was really concerned about what the food was. It's not that. I actually just love red wine.

• 24:51Jessie Ware?

  You just needed a way to be able to set it up. Yeah, no, I love red wine. And can I tell you about this bloody good one that Mum?

• 24:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:58Jessie Ware?

  I mean, like, Mum and I disagree on wines quite a lot, but this one. It's delicious. It's a card. It's not cheap. I mean, it's not cheap, but it's twelve pounds, but it's delish.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  Where is it from? Languedoc? Chateau Saint-Élen?

• 25:14Jessie Ware?

  It's just very tasty.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  I'm going to tell my husband, who's, who's, is the word enophile? O E N O P H I L E. It means somebody who's crazy mad about wine.

• 25:25Jessie Ware?

  Oh, really?

• 25:26Speaker 04

  Knows about them, lays things down, reads about them.

• 25:29Jessie Ware?

  So does he have that app, the, the, the one that you photograph the wine and then everyone rates it?

• 25:34Speaker 04

  Oh, no, he doesn't do that.

• 25:35Jessie Ware?

  Oh, we need to get on that.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  Oh, don't let me tell him. I will tell him, he'll get it.

• 25:39Jessie Ware?

  And then it's like, you see what the reviews are of this wine. And it's called, is it called Vinotec or something? It's called Vinotec.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  He probably is on it secretly.

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• 27:34Jessie Ware?

  Hello Table Manners listeners. I just wanted to let you know about my new podcast, Is It Normal?, the pregnancy podcast, which follows my pregnancy journey and with the help of some brilliant experts, will reassure and inform you about all aspects of pregnancy and giving birth. Throughout my pregnancy, I spoke to consultants, midwives, obstetricians, sonographers, mental health experts, doulas, home birth midwives, reflexologists, the list goes on. And with the help of questions from other pregnant people, the podcast covers as many aspects of pregnancy and giving birth as possible. I'd love you to have a listen and please let your pregnant friends know about it. Is It Normal?, the pregnancy podcast is a reassuring helping hand, not an instruction

• 28:15Jessie Ware?

  manual. It's a space for frank, open and positive dialogue. The full 40 weeks are available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 28:26Jessie Ware?

  So have we started thinking about our last supper?

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Our last supper. Now, look, I love to start with something, I mean, you can tell already that it might be marginally a little bit tame for most people, my last supper. This is the toss up.

• 28:43Jessie Ware?

  Is the far East going to feature in this at all?

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:45Jessie Ware?

  Okay, great.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  This is what I mean by a boring cook. It might be corn on the cob. I adore corn on the cob.

• 28:54Jessie Ware?

  I understand.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  I just love it.

• 28:56Jessie Ware?

  Bit of butter on there?

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Butter, salt, pepper.

• 28:59Jessie Ware?

  Lovely.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  And pretty much that. And eaten very disgustingly with it falling down your chin.

• 29:03Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. It's a nightmare for the teeth.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Bad for the teeth. So then, small little toothpick. It might have been a cheese souffle.

• 29:12Jessie Ware?

  Ooh.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Ooh, a little Swiss cheese souffle.

• 29:14Jessie Ware?

  So, like, oh.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Just a little tiny one which comes up like a chef's hat.

• 29:18Jessie Ware?

  But like, where have you had a memorable cheese souffle?

• 29:21Speaker 04

  In the Woolly. In the Woolly, they do.

• 29:23Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I love the Woolly.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Oh, I love it. I love it. I can't bear.

• 29:26Jessie Ware?

  I feel so happy when I'm there.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Me too. I adore it. I adore it. And they make a cheese souffle that is absolutely heavenly.

• 29:31Jessie Ware?

  Oh, is it? Okay, fine. I'll have it next time.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  So worth having next time you're there.

• 29:33Jessie Ware?

  Because I like their avocado vinaigrette that they do there. I mean, it's really straightforward.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  I just love it. But that might be the third of my choices.

• 29:40Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  So when we come to this feast, I would allow.

• 29:43Jessie Ware?

  Bits and bobs.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. Then for the main course, it would have to include rice. It might actually be some sort of magical curry. It would have dal, it would have all the bits and pieces. It might be a curry from Nepal. It might be quite hot, some quite hot chilli-ish things. I adore all the bits that go on the side, which are like poppadoms and chapatis.

• 30:08Jessie Ware?

  And the lime pickles.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  You're not supposed to have lime pickle, mango chutney, everything you can think of.

• 30:12Jessie Ware?

  I'm giving that to you first, only because I haven't cut it.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  I don't want to cut well one, darling, because I should destroy it in seconds. I like the idea. I also love Malaysian curries. I love the peanuts and the stuff like that. The satay, I love anything that's hot enough to need yoghurt and, you know, whatever it's called.

• 30:34Jessie Ware?

  So you like a condiment, you like a few little things on the...

• 30:36Speaker 04

  I like a little spread.

• 30:38Jessie Ware?

  A tali, yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  I think I like a tali with some Malaysian bits in it.

• 30:43Jessie Ware?

  And then pudding, sweet person much?

• 30:46Speaker 04

  No.

• 30:46Jessie Ware?

  Not bothered?

• 30:48Speaker 04

  No, but I love, I wouldn't mind a little sour lemon mousse or a little, maybe a poached little pear or something like that. I don't, this is an awful thing to say, I don't really love chocolate. I don't like it when chocolate comes my way.

• 31:02Jessie Ware?

  I don't think that's an awful thing to say. What did you do tonight, Mum? I've done roasted plums. Oh, well that'd be all right, that's a bit like a poached pear.

• 31:10Speaker 04

  That's the thing. No, roasted plums is the business. God, that looks sensational.

• 31:14Jessie Ware?

  It does have the, a hint of Domino's Vegetarian Supreme. Does it? I have to say, and I do like that, I do like it. Good job, Joanna.

• 31:23Speaker 04

  You're brilliant, darling.

• 31:24Jessie Ware?

  Do I need to get dressing for the salad? Yeah. Or the balsamic?

• 31:28Speaker 04

  That's divine, honey. Look at that. Oh, it's divine.

• 31:31Jessie Ware?

  So, where, I, I, I need to know, if you're really into your curries, what's your takeaway curry place of choice?

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Do you get many takeaways? No. Do you go out for dinner a lot? No, we're literally the dullest and most unpleasant people you can imagine. We really are. We like having people round and forcing them to eat the fairly drab food we cook, but if we had a takeaway, we've got a good one on the South Lambeth Road, whose name sadly I can't remember. They're fine. Have you always lived round there? For a long time, no, for thirty years. Do you like it? I love it. So, do you go to the Canton Arms? Or you don't go out? Canton Arms? Canton Arms. They are magic. They do wonderful pub food. They're sweethearts. And once when Ranulph Fiennes and his team had been doing some hellish things in Antarctica,

• 32:26Speaker 04

  trying to walk across it in the pitch dark of deep snow and everything went ghastly, and we were six months out there, nightmare. When they came back, so I was one of the keen followers of and patrons of the expedition, I asked them round to lunch in our music room. We've got an old factory which has been converted into a music room for Stephen's piano and harpsichord and keyboard and all those things. And in there, there's enough room for a swing a cat, it's like a kind of, it's like a little schoolroom really, and I've got schoolroom tables. And I got Charlie from the Canton Arms. I said, "Think of a feast for homecoming sailors, homecoming explorers." And he did a slow-cooked lamb, I think, and he did stuff that was, it's food that they would never have got

• 33:11Speaker 04

  out of tins in Antarctica for six months. They adored it. And I had devised a cocktail for this occasion. I quite love a cocktail. Oh, really? Yes, I do. That might come just before the first course. A peritif. What's your cocktail? It'll be the Bond Martini. Oh, you shake and not stir. With gin or vodka? It would be with gin. And I think it's gin and vodka. If you look up the Vespa- It would have a twist.

• 33:38Jessie Ware?

  He has, he doesn't have dirty, I like dirty.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  What, is that with an olive?

• 33:41Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  Well, I wouldn't mind that.

• 33:43Jessie Ware?

  No, you know. So you have it with a twist? Do you make cocktails at home?

• 33:48Speaker 04

  Stevie did the other night, we had a cocktail the other night.

• 33:51Jessie Ware?

  So you don't go out to eat that much?

• 33:53Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 33:54Jessie Ware?

  You have people over and you do co- let's talk about cocktails.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  She's too bloody busy.

• 33:58Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you are quite busy.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  When are you going to, you're not going to stop, are you?

• 34:03Speaker 04

  It'll, it'll stop.

• 34:04Jessie Ware?

  Why should she?

• 34:04Speaker 04

  It'll stop.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  It will never stop.

• 34:06Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 34:06Speaker 04

  One day when it stops, then I'll know it's the time.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  No, it won't stop for you, at all. Because people adore you.

• 34:14Jessie Ware?

  I mean.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  But you're not, you're not a bit Patsy, are you really? I'm a bit sad to say.

• 34:20Jessie Ware?

  Why?

• 34:21Speaker 04

  No, I know, most people are sad.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Because Patsy was so fabulous.

• 34:25Speaker 04

  But she was disgusting, you'd hate her here, she wouldn't eat.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  I know.

• 34:29Jessie Ware?

  But, I mean, I'm sure you're so bored of talking about absolutely fabulous.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  No, I'm not, I love it, I love it.

• 34:33Jessie Ware?

  Was it kind of?

• 34:35Speaker 04

  It was.

• 34:35Jessie Ware?

  I mean, how old were, how old were you when you were doing that?

• 34:37Speaker 04

  Forty-five, I don't know.

• 34:39Jessie Ware?

  Did it feel kind of like your most rock and roll period?

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Well, the thing, the thing was, was that I'd always been a fool and a comedian. Only everybody, because I'd been a model, I was always put down to dull, pretty girls who just did right things and so on. So suddenly to see this script coming through the post, where I was utterly repellent and very, very awful. Well, it wasn't quite written like that to begin with.

• 35:00Jessie Ware?

  Did you help shape that, then?

• 35:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and she's so generous, she lets that happen.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Who wrote it?

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Jennifer.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  Jennifer wrote it?

• 35:07Speaker 04

  Jennifer wrote it. Little bit tweaks here and there. From Ruby, who was just a genius.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Yes, she is.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  But when you did Patsy.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  Mm.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  You shaped her into being this awful person who hated.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  No, she was written, they were both written as repellent women. But it was lovely to be able to bring to Patsy the stuff I brought to her, because she wasn't really.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  She was chaotic, she, well, Jennifer was more chaotic.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Jennifer was chaotic. Patsy was just an alley cat, she had no, she was like a kind of, she could live without any internal organs. She'd been a man at one stage in her life. She switched back, she was gender fluid before it became popular.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  Of course she was.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  She was an extraordinary character. And she just sailed through life, using other people's money. And, you know, so completely self-absorbed. It was her and Adina, that's all she really cared about. It was quite an interesting kind of character. And as it went on, Jennifer writing and writing and loved that character of Patsy and wrote masses for Patsy. I loved the hair. Did you have a hairpiece? Uh-uh, that was all my own hair. Oh my god. Back then. The best hair. Jennifer called it Mr. Whippy. Back it up in there, spray it and then tame it. But that was only once a week, you see, we did the shows, you'd get the script on Monday, read through. Tuesday, rehearse. Wednesday, show it to the crew, who have to get the cameras in the right places.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Thursday, do the outside broadcasting bits of arriving in taxis or doing whatever you have to do. Friday, block it again in the studio and then live, live show in front of the audience in the evening. Oh wow. It was really hair-raising. Hair-raising. It was fantastic, it was fantastic. And the audiences were great. Sometimes we had to almost stop recording because they get completely hysterical. It was wonderful.

• 36:58Jessie Ware?

  When do these shows, when do your ITV shows come out?

• 37:01Speaker 04

  I think they're coming out in maybe March, I think.

• 37:07Jessie Ware?

  And you go, we talked about Rome, but you go to Paris and Berlin.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:11Jessie Ware?

  Which, which was your kind of most memorable show? But I mean, which one felt like you learnt the most?

• 37:21Speaker 04

  The one I knew the least about was Berlin, although I'd filmed there and had been a model there. I adored Berlin. Paris, I'd known very well and loved very, very deeply. And Rome is just the eternal city. I mean, it just breaks your heart. Jessie, it's fantastic. You've got a treat ahead of you. I went first when I was forty, darling, so you've got a few years. You've got a treat ahead of you because it cannot disappoint. Did you go to the Vatican? I did. And was the, because I was sort of... And guess what? What? He didn't come out and give you. This is before dawn, I arrived at four thirty in the morning. I was let in secretly through the vast gates of the Vatican Museum.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Where I went with the key keeper, a man called Signor Crea. There are two thousand seven hundred and seven keys to the Vatican Museum collection. The Vatican Museum, and there is only one key to the Sistine Chapel. And the Sistine Chapel key is kept behind a locked door, behind a bunker, behind a sealed door, behind a safe. You open the safe and it gives you the key to another safe where you open it. And every night the envelope containing the key to the Vatican, to the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican. It's sealed, stamped, signed, and I had it.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  And we walked down these vast, I took it with me, I was in key for key, and off we went clinking and jangling. Torch lit down these huge, vast, god, just mile after mile of treasures and delights and extraordinary brillances. And finally we got there and he said, he's here. And I said, oh my god, and just a big dark door. He said, two turns to the left, so, and then the door opened, the torch light, and suddenly you're in amongst them. My laundry is. Oh, wow, it's just amazing, isn't it? So that was one of the great, great treats. Do you ever bring your husband on? Can't, no, none of us do, we're all married and none of us bring our people, we can't. How did you meet your husband?

• 39:30Speaker 04

  It's tiny, it's a tiny cruise. Yeah, of course. How did you meet your husband? Through people I knew, he was at school with the child of a people I knew. Who were sort of half a generation older than me. And I'm eight years older than Stevie, and so he was at school when I'd grown up and left and had Jamie with me on my lap. And he was going to come out of school with this school friend of his who was their son. And he never came and I thought, how odd, I'm really disappointed that I'm not meeting a thirteen year old boy who I've never heard of. That's really odd.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  So then leave it. Ten years go by and the son of the family is getting married and playing the organ. Of course, it's the brilliant musician Stephen Barlow, his best friend from school. So I met him there, but I was with somebody else and he was just leaving Cambridge and flying high and being very difficult. Part again. And the third time we met, or the, you know, the third appointment with fate.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  He was rehearsing, he'd fi- he knew where I lived and he, out of the blue, came a Christmas card saying, are you, do you still live there?

• 40:44Speaker 04

  I thought, that's odd, so I wrote and said, yes. He said, I'm rehearsing around the corner. Can I come and see you? And he came and just talked at tea time and we just talked for three hours and that's it, that was it. It was kind of that.

• 40:56Jessie Ware?

  How old were you?

• 40:58Speaker 04

  I must have been about thirty-seven by then.

• 41:01Jessie Ware?

  So you brought up, you brought up Jamie on your own at the beginning?

• 41:04Speaker 04

  Yes, I did. I mean, on my own, you're never really on your own because you've got, I had my beloved family, my mother and my father. And boyfriends, kind boyfriends who adored him and mostly one longstanding boyfriend. Who were great with him and his own father, who we always went to see and so on. So it was, I was a single mother in the, in what is not even worth recording nowadays, but in those days it was always a bit, ooh, you know, goodness. How can you manage that?

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Did you go to finishing school?

• 41:33Speaker 04

  No.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  You didn't go to, and did you go train at Lucy Clayton?

• 41:37Speaker 04

  I went to Lucy Clayton, but you had to, you had to go there for a month.

• 41:40Jessie Ware?

  What's Lucy Clayton?

• 41:41Speaker 04

  And give them twelve ginnies. It was a modeling school.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  It was a modeling school.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  And it was also a finishing school.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Finishing school.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  No, it had a finishing school. My mother wanted me to go.

• 41:49Jessie Ware?

  So come and give us some good, um, Lucy Clayton manners, table manners.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  I didn't do that.

• 41:54Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  I did the modeling thing. There was a side of it which was actually the finishing school. She had a finishing school and a modeling school. This is what you don't do if you've probably gone to the finishing school. Yeah. And then continue talking like that. That's disgusting. Hmm. What you do, I would know, is that you take a napkin. Put your napkin and put it on your lap. Put it on your lap and push over your left bit of leg. Left leg.

• 42:14Jessie Ware?

  Really?

• 42:15Speaker 04

  Why your left? I'll tell you later. I've no idea. Oh, no, darling, I didn't know then. I'm going to show you a very okay thing to do from Lucy Clayton. What, put your finger and do the? No, no, darling, no, no, Jessie, no. I'm just indicating my plate. Oh, I thought you could get in there and not do your lick of the finger. I'm just indicating my plate. And I'm indicating my plate to show that I've left some on the plate. You have to leave some, because it'd be greedy. I usually don't, I usually eat it all up. Because it's greedy if you eat it. Yeah, and this is called leaving something for Mr. Manners. Oh, shut up. No, no, sorry. Is that a thing? Yeah, suck it, suck it up. Literally be there, Jessie. You weren't, you didn't, we were like, there was no point in. Mr. Manners ain't coming for dinner with me, I tell you that. There was no point in sending you, darling.

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Mr. Manners, somebody said, well, let's scrape it all into a box and send it to Mr. Manners. It tastes all right. Yes, it's fine. The combination's nice. I think it's divine. Thank you. I've got ear cups now. You've got ear cups? Oh, God. You probably need a bit more of this fifteen percent. No, no, look, I'll tell you the cocktail I made. What is the cocktail? I might take up slightly, it was, this is just part of it, caring, caring, sharing. You like the strong alcohol, you go for it. Yeah, no, but look, this is the cocktail I made. I saw that the Russian word for the ridges of snow that freeze hard and become impossible to traverse with skis or sleaze, they're called sastrugi.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  They go up and down, up and down, and they're like waves of the sea which are frozen hard, and they're murder to get through. You can't break them down, and to drag stuff over, it goes ba bum, ba bum, ba bum, ba bum, like this. So I decided to make a cocktail called sastrugi. This is what it is. Bien simple, très simple à faire, very simple to make.

• 44:03Speaker 04

  I quite like a V-shaped glass. Yeah. I quite like a cocktail glass. Yeah, me too. In the bottom, it put a little blue curcuma. Okay, I never knew what to do with that, okay, fine. Just colour, darling. It's literally colour, but it's got a bit of a kick to it. Fine. Boukoura sound. Then you put a scoop of lemon sorbet. It's got to be shop-bought lemon sorbet, not smartly made by a chef's le- lemon sorbet. It's got to be the stuff you buy from the freezer counter and go that, it's like a lemon sorbet. I'll have that, scoop of that. So make a heated spoon, put it in and blip that in, and then fill it to the top.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  With vodka.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  With vodka. It's got to be vodka, it's Russian. And what happens is that the dark blue remains, but it begins to stain the vodka. And then at the top sits this little slightly sweet block of ice which chills right on.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Do you know what?

• 45:02Jessie Ware?

  I told you.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  I made it up.

• 45:04Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you made it up.

• 45:05Speaker 04

  Oh, I made it up.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  Look what did you do here, honey. Tell me what you did.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  I tell you what I did. I roasted them with honey and star anise. Then I removed the star anise because it's not very nice.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  They look completely beautiful. These are ripe little red plums.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Which are cut, you've made them so that they they sit flat, so you've cut a bottom off them.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  No, I haven't.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  Did they just go splod?

• 45:35Speaker 03

  They went like that.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  They just went, so, okay, this is me saying they didn't just have the bottoms cut off. But they're sitting very flatly, looking absolutely beautiful, like little peachy. What do they look like, little?

• 45:47Speaker 03

  I don't know, they look very nice when you make them.

• 45:50Speaker 04

  They look absolutely beautiful.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  And that's mascarpone with orange.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  And mascarpone with orange.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very nice.

• 45:57Jessie Ware?

  I need to talk to you about your lip colour. It's really good.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:01Jessie Ware?

  What colour is this lip? Is it Charlotte Tilbury?

• 46:03Speaker 04

  Because?

• 46:04Jessie Ware?

  Walk of shame.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  No, it isn't, but how funny. This is, this is several layers of old stuff I've found in the cupboard, but the thing is, is that I've been doing, I've been on Zoom since this morning, ten o'clock. So I put stuff on, then I put stuff more on, then they've been doing the ponds in the garden, I had to do that, then I had to do something, then I had to do another Zoom with somebody else. So each time I just put a layer of something else and I go upstairs, God, I look like a cow. Is this too dark? And I put a bit more on.

• 46:28Jessie Ware?

  I just, you look so sensational.

• 46:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:31Jessie Ware?

  So this is a mixture of lips?

• 46:34Speaker 04

  A mixture, a mixture of lips, um, which, none, none of which are expensive. Eyes are old, I mean, I can't tell you, I use old stuff. My lovely Sarah, who's my Portuguese cleaner and helper. She's much younger than me and she takes, she thinks I'm a darling old woman and takes care of me. And we went through all my old trunks and suitcases, because whatever I do jobs, people give me makeup. You get makeup and you can't use it all, you can't use all the stuff. So it goes away and it's lovely and lovely, but you don't need seventeen different colours of red lipstick. So they go into a thing, sometimes I use it a bit, sign it or put a thing with it and send it off to sometimes gay. Because they love the idea of having a patsy lipstick and sometimes they are the lipstick I've used for patsy and so on.

• 47:16Speaker 04

  And so all those lovely things and, you know, but in the end you can't do it. So she was helping me throw stuff out. And it just, it just reminded me of how, how you tend to get a look that would kind of work for just being every day.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Do you wear makeup every day?

• 47:31Speaker 04

  Uh, no, but if I'm to be on a Zoom or something, I do, so I, I don't. But this is you doing it yourself? Yeah. But you're very. But darling, I was a model, I was a model. And in those days, in those days, modelling meant you did your own hair, your nails, you were your own accessoriser. You provided all your own clothes, your jewellery, makeup, you did your eyelashes, you did your wigs and hair, hair styling.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  How long did you model for?

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Three years, but it's kind of come back to haunt me because in those days to be a model was the most shameful thing in the world if you wanted to be an actress. They went, if you were a model, I'm sorry, I was, you can't learn lines and you go, well, I was doing Shakespeare at school. They go, no, no, you're useless. So I fought for the first ten years of my life desperately trying to get parts which I could, to show that I could do anything. But having been a model was fatal. Now, having been a model, everybody thinks you're fantastic. Models themselves are paid a king's ransom. We were, we were poor as.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Paid nothing.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  Nothing. And that was fine, it didn't make me feel sad. But looking now at people saying, even twenty five years ago, I wouldn't get out of bed for less than ten grand, you go.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  What? In three years, if I was lucky to enough to have earned ten grand, you know? So anyway, different times, different times. But you do look fantastic. Well, I put layers of makeup on, darling. I start quite early and I start layering it on.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  Layer it on.

• 48:51Speaker 04

  I layer it on. So what's next? Next, next, properly huge next will be another vast travel, which is back to my beloved faraway lands. So this will start at the Banda Islands, which are just by, they're just north west of New Guinea. And it's called the spice root and it's following spices. Oh my god. So all across Indonesia to Singapore, then across to Sri Lanka, down to Mauritius, across to Zanzibar, up through the Red Sea to Jordan and then into Alexandria. Wow.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Oh, how wonderful.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  And that's starting in September, going on till Christmas. Wow.

• 49:29Jessie Ware?

  How exciting, what adventures.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:31Jessie Ware?

  And Joanna, what is your least favourite table manners? Or do you think you firstly, do you think you've got good table manners?

• 49:40Speaker 03

  Of course she did, she went to Lucy bloody Clayton.

• 49:42Jessie Ware?

  But she did the modelling.

• 49:43Speaker 04

  But my ma taught me quite good table manners. So I think I've got good-ish table manners. And when I'm, when I'm in V polite society, I'm as anxious as everybody else, thinking, should I put? But I know that when you, these are the things I know, I don't always do them. You cut your food. I just want to put in for the moment, in this podcast, at that moment I started talking, Jessie, yawn.

• 50:04Jessie Ware?

  No, it's not what I'm trying to say.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  She yawned.

• 50:07Jessie Ware?

  That's because I have three children.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  It's the old, old.

• 50:11Jessie Ware?

  Listen, I'm never up at nine.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  That is not good table manners.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  I've got three children, I will that stuff.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Jessie, you can't harp on about three bloody children.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  Darling, put your knife and fork down when you've put the mouthful in your mouth. Don't speak with your mouth full. Don't um blow your nose on your napkin. Always get up and help the hostess if it's that kind of thing. You've got servants.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Don't blow on your food.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  Don't blow on your food, well, you can do that.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  No, my sister-in-law says you can't. Do you remember she used to shout at Alec, so it's not done.

• 50:37Jessie Ware?

  So what do you do, just sit and wait?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Just wait till it cools down.

• 50:40Jessie Ware?

  Oh no.

• 50:41Speaker 04

  And if you're eating, which you won't now because she's long gone with the Queen Mother, start very quickly because she eats like, like the wind, scoff, scoff, scoff. And you can, and once, once she's put her food, her knife and fork down, you can't eat anymore.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  You're kidding.

• 50:53Jessie Ware?

  What?

• 50:53Speaker 04

  Not the Queen. The Queen Mother, because it's rude. So you've got to eat and as she's served first and eats fast.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  And she ate, ate quickly.

• 51:00Speaker 04

  So what you've got to do is to pick the whole lot up and just scoop it straight in and swallow it down.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  You'd be all right, Jess.

• 51:05Jessie Ware?

  I would have done really well.

• 51:07Speaker 04

  I eat fast, you eat fast.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  She's so fast.

• 51:09Jessie Ware?

  Um Joanna, Dame Joanna Lumley.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  Goodbye.

• 51:12Jessie Ware?

  No, please stay, but thank you so much for doing this.

• 51:16Speaker 04

  I've so loved it.

• 51:18Jessie Ware?

  I'm really glad.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  I've loved it. We've never had a dame before.

• 51:21Jessie Ware?

  I don't think we have.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  No, we haven't.

• 51:23Jessie Ware?

  We have.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  Ever. Not even had a... We've had Sir Paul McCartney, that's.

• 51:27Jessie Ware?

  Oh, darling.

• 51:28Speaker 03

  Small fry, come on. Not like a dame. There is nothing like a dame. Nothing in the world.

• 51:49Speaker 03

  I think she possibly is one of our favourite girls.

• 51:51Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. And she really sealed...

• 51:54Speaker 03

  Loving being with her.

• 51:55Jessie Ware?

  She really sealed the fact that we must always start with Bollinger.

• 52:00Speaker 03

  Good old Bollie, darling.

• 52:01Jessie Ware?

  Bollie. She sent the loveliest cards.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  She sent the most beautiful card of that lady sitting where she's drinking absinthe on her own, and she put a little bubble and she said, "I just wish I was with Jess and Lenny."

• 52:13Jessie Ware?

  And you can see Dame Joanna Lumley guest starring in the new TV series of Wednesday on Netflix, playing Morticia's mum. But also...

• 52:23Speaker 03

  I loved her in Amandaland.

• 52:25Jessie Ware?

  She's the most fantastic mother in Amandaland.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  I'm so glad they developed her character.

• 52:30Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, it's brilliant. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Dame Joanna Lumley for coming over. It really was so special and we'll see you next week.

• 52:48Speaker 00

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric and on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households, yet many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.