Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure takes her to the remote Indonesian islands

If you put veteran stars Michael Palin and Joanna Lumley in the same room together, you would probably discover that, between them, they have travelled the length and breadth of the planet.

Like Michael, Joanna had already carved out a name for herself as an actress long before she packed her passport for the 1997 documentary Joanna Lumley in the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon.

In it, cameras followed her as she retraced the journey her grandparents took in Bhutan 60 years previously, and it was an instant hit with viewers.

Since then, Joanna, who told The Guardian she “can’t bear the thought of a year without a suitcase”, has travelled to the far north to experience the Northern Lights for herself, explored the Nile, undertaken a Greek Odyssey and a Trans-Siberian Adventure, lifted the lid on India, enjoyed a Silk Road Adventure and explored the Hidden Caribbean.

After all that, there’s no wonder she opted for the mother of all staycations in 2021 with Joanna Lumley’s Home Sweet Home – Travels in My Own Land.

In spite of racking up all those air miles, the itch to travel clearly arose again, leading to this latest four-part televisual postcard.

Curiously, the destination for the opening instalment of this charming travelogue, which sees her journey from Indonesia to Jordan through India, Zanzibar and Madagascar, is a collection of remote Indonesian islands that are so small that Joanna’s first challenge is finding them on the map.

The Banda Islands is one of the few places on Earth where nutmeg grows, and Joanna meets a family who make their living from harvesting these evocative spices.

She also looks past the picture-perfect beauty and uncovers the region’s dark past, before learning how Banda’s charms once attracted A-listers, including Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger.

Heading to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, Joanna gets to the bottom of why 200 million clove cigarettes are smoked in the country every day, before popping into a cool speakeasy bar.

There, she samples a cocktail that is all about the spice and ends up discovering a newfound love for Indonesia’s national pop music.

Scenes capturing the honest, emotional impact of her experiences are just as compelling as the locations in Joanna’s documentaries and travelogues.

Back in 1994, she spent nine days on the island of Tsarabanjina, off the coast of Madagascar, armed with just a basic survival kit. The BBC documentary initially portrayed her as a posh-girl-in-the-wild but, as she detailed her experiences to the camera crew who left her to her own devices each evening, and via her own video diary, viewers were increasingly gripped by the impact the experience was having on the star.

That willingness to explore different cultures and allow us to witness how they affect her has made Joanna one of our most beloved televisual travelling companions.

That curiosity and enthusiasm hasn’t diminished one bit, as she explained about making Spice Trail Adventure: “I kept thinking, this is the very tippy-top, then you see something else,” she said.