Amandaland will make you howl with laughter – Lucy Punch has never been better

This Motherland spin-off shouldn’t work. As fans of Sharon Horgan’s Bafta-winning comedy will know, Amanda, the posh alpha mum played by Lucy Punch, was a side event. All phoney smile and blonde ambition, the character thought she was the centre of the universe, yet could never steal the spotlight from chronically frazzled fellow parents, Julia, Kevin and Liz. Now, Amandaland has arrived on BBC One, and the clue is in the title: the spotlight has been stolen. Noooooo! It’s like entering a universe where Charlie Bucket’s been gazumped by Veruca Salt.

Motherland was axed after its 2022 Christmas special pulled in merely average viewing figures. Arguably, lessons have been learnt. Where the final festive episode was bracingly bleak, Amandaland (written by roughly the same team, plus Horrible Histories’s Laurence Rickard) has a cosier, more romcom-ish vibe.

With Amanda’s off-screen ex, Johnny (Terry Mynott), refusing to subsidise her W4 lifestyle, our worldly heroine has been forced to relocate to a flat in SoHa (south Harlesden). She’s also allowing her two teenage kids, Georgie and Manus, to go to a “bog standard state school”. Amanda’s downstairs neighbour, Mal (Samuel Anderson), is handsome, decent, gainfully employed, unattached and has a son who goes to the same school. Initially, Amanda and Mal find each other irritating. Soon, tiny sparks are flying. Amanda may not realise it yet, but Mal’s so Mr Right for her. Yawn.

Meanwhile, Motherland favourite Felicity (Joanna Lumley), Amanda’s vivaciously vicious booze-hound of a mum, has had a personality makeover. Thanks to the divine Lumley, she is still great value, but as the series progresses she appears increasingly good-hearted. I kept hoping Georgie and Manus would ask this cuddly figure: “Who are you and what have you done with our real Gan Gan?”

On the plus side, the undeniably talented Punch has never been better. She juggles her expressions so we never know whether to expect innocence or low cunning. You get the feeling Punch realises this is her big shot at mainstream success; even when Amanda cluelessly mixes up A Clockwork Orange with a chocolate orange, Punch delivers the line as if her life depended on it.

As for Siobhan McSweeney, as new character Della, she's on fire. Della is a charismatic celebrity chef from Ireland, with a wife and daughter. She’s the only “mum-chum” Amanda deems worthy of attention, though it would be an understatement to say that Della has no time for Amanda’s fawning (at one point, Amanda flirtatiously asks to eat pork from the tip of Della’s carving knife; Della’s look of horror is one for the ages).

As Sister Michael in Derry Girls, McSweeney showed that she excels at lofty truculence. The fresh ingredient here is Della’s “soppy” attitude towards her English wife, Fi (Rochenda Sandall). Loved-up Della dotes on the flaky, Fi, who, in turn, can’t resist being nice to Amanda. Della and Fi’s sexually charged and vaguely dysfunctional relationship subverts sitcom rules (the gay couple are neither predatory grotesques nor bland, squeaky-clean role models). Just as importantly, the chemistry between McSweeney and Sandall is palpable. Basically, if you’re looking for a zeitgeisty and accessible screwball farce, you’ll be left giddy by what the two actors, in conjunction with Punch, pull off.

McSweeney is equally sublime in a plot thread involving Derry Girls veteran Philipa Dunne, here reprising her role as Amanda’s Irish pal/lickspittle Anne. Della and Anne have a falling out, triggered by a wild kids’ party at Della’s house, yet the acrimony between the women has deeper and, some would say socio-political, roots. Asked about Anne, Della growls, “She hates the Irish!” This is, to put it mildly, an atypical feud. As a self-loving Celt, I’m on tenterhooks to see how it pans out.

Other highlights include a school parents’ evening that’s rightly compared to Squid Game, plus a filthy joke about a pearl necklace and Amanda’s take on protective headgear (“Forced to choose between brain damage and helmet-hair, I think you know where I stand.”)

While we’re on the subject of Amanda’s looks, it’s a neat touch that the character (who is secretly peri-menopausal, as well as desperate to establish herself as a new-fangled entrepreneur) hasn’t remotely come to terms with the ageing process. Even in Motherland, Amanda had angst. In the new show, as you’d expect, there’s more time to explore her loneliness and self-doubt. What is Amanda good for? The answer is frequently absolutely nothing. But we root for this absurd and vulnerable woman all the same.

Though screeners of episodes five and six weren’t made available for review, Amandaland already has a nice sense of place. Snobby and out-of-touch characters complain that Harlesden is a crime spot, smells “of buses” and contains nothing but “chicken shops”. That last jibe surely counts as an in-joke. As demonstrated by Amelia Dimoldenberg’s cult YouTube show, Chicken Shop Date (regularly filmed on Harlesden High Street), chicken shops aren't what they used to be. In Notting Hill, Richard Curtis minimised the realities of gentrification to an outrageous degree. Amandaland, by contrast, seems deliberately designed to get us talking about what happens to a deprived area when the middle classes move in.

Every now and again, an iconoclastic gem spawns an entirely worthy spin-off (Rhoda was as groundbreaking, in its own way, as The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Phoenix Nights easily matched the highs of That Peter Kay Thing). It’s too early to say if Amandaland is in that league. Let’s just say this clever and jolly series is hard to resist. Though, in case you can’t tell, I really did try.