Joanna Lumley: 2019 BAFTA host apologises after controversial speech

British comedy icon Joanna Lumley has apologised to those she may have offended with her BAFTAs hosting speech while suggesting we need to lighten up.

British comedy icon Joanna Lumley has apologised to those she may have offended with her BAFTAs hosting speech while suggesting we need to lighten up.

The Absolutely Fabulous was lambasted for her hosting duties of the UK film night when in her opening monologue she referred to the Ku Klux Klan.

English actress Joanna Lumley at the Sofitel in Sydney ahead of hosting Blue Planet II live in concert. Picture: Brett Costello

Addressing the crowd and referring to Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman hit, Lumley joked that she was “surprised it did so well at the Klan Film Festival”.

“They made jokes throughout the film about it,” she responded to backlash. “I think we have gotten a little bit strange and sensitive. I think you are allowed to say klan without being locked up in jail for being a racist. Maybe we are just getting a bit soft.”

Adding her voice to high profile comics who have spoken out against pressure to be politically correct, she added: “I think somehow we need to be a little more grown up. The backlash, I didn’t see any of it but people, they would cross the road to tell me about it. I thought, ‘holy shit, I am so sorry about that, how awful. I did what I have to do, which is read out the stuff that I am given and I am so sorry.”

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Lumley has had a long, successful and eclectic career on screen. Picture: Brett Costello

Lumley, 72, is in Australia for the BBC, hosting a series of Blue Planet II Live In Concert events that start at ICC Sydney on Friday.

Lumley is described as a “UK icon” in the press blurb for Blue Planet, a term she humbly laughs off.

“When you start off in this business you don’t know if anyone will remember your name and quite often it is misspelt. You are so grateful somebody should get your name right so the idea that you’ll ever be remembered for anything is ludicrously exciting.

Filming The Avengers in 1976 is Lumley as Purdey, Patrick MacNee as John Steed and Gareth Hunt as Mike Gambit. Picture: AP

Despite enjoying a career of more than five decades, it is Lumley’s first time on stage in Australia.

“You cram it all in and do what you can because you will regret it when you are 90 and drooling and unable to walk wishing you’d done the things you had time to do and didn’t bother,” she said.

Absolutely Fabulous first launched as a TV series in 1992 and ran through until 2012, with some breaks of course, and with its cult following is still screened around the world today.

Supplied for Best Weekend June 24 2016. Actor Jennifer Saunders (r) with Joanna Lumley in scene from TV program "Absolutely Fabulous".

Eddy and Patsy hit Paris looking absolutely fabulous.

Lumley is known for playing hard living magazine fashion director Patsy Stone while co-star Jennifer Saunders is her equally hard living gal pal Edina Monsoon.

“Patsy has never really left me,” the actor said. “She always has a glass at the ready and a couple of smokes going at the same time.”

Joanna Lumley as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous.

As for whether or not the characters will see the big or small screen again, she said: “We keep thinking it is the end but there is some weird nagging thing, particularly for Patsy and Eddie, they don’t seem to have gone back into their boxes so maybe something will come up.”

Originally published as Joanna Lumley: 2019 BAFTA host apologises after controversial speech