Amandaland: Lucy Punch dazzles in 'glorious' Motherland spin-off

"Spin-off series can easily disappoint," said Carol Midgley in The Times, "but I just knew that 'Amandaland', offspring of the mighty 'Motherland' (BBC1) would be glorious... and it is." How could it not be, given the original series's funniest scenes all involved Amanda (Lucy Punch), and episodes in which she was rationed were poorer for it? Now, we get her as the "main course, and she rises to the challenge beautifully".

When the series opens, we find the former queen bee broke and newly divorced. Amanda has had to whip her children out of private school and trade Chiswick for south Harlesden – or "SoHa", as she calls it – while she tries to make it as an influencer. We do miss the "Motherland" old guard, including Anna Maxwell Martin's Julia, but Philippa Dunne reprises her role as Anne; Joanna Lumley returns as Amanda's "exquisitely disparaging" mother; and there are great new characters, including a chef played by Siobhán McSweeney (of "Derry Girls" fame).

The show isn't just very funny, said Chitra Ramaswamy in The Guardian, it is also "unexpectedly" moving. This is largely thanks to Punch's excellent tragi-comic delivery of lines such as: "I'm actually reclaiming the word 'simpleton'."

"Motherland" was axed after its bleak 2022 Christmas special "pulled in merely average viewing figures", said Charlotte O'Sullivan in The Independent. Lessons, it seems, have been learnt: this has a "cosier, more romcom-ish vibe", and it is hard to resist.