Loved Motherland? I promise you will love this new spin-off
Amandaland
★★★★
Stan*
After the final episode of the brilliant British series Motherland aired in 2022, and it gradually became evident there wouldn’t be a fourth season, viewers (and parents on the parenting forum Mumsnet) were bereft. Co-created by Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, Bad Sisters), the BAFTA-winning drama was a biting portrayal of middle-class parenting, in which the mums rarely interacted with their offspring or even their partners. Its core was the ways in which a group of mums – whose only common ground was that their kids went to the same school – interacted with each other and dealt with the quotidian stresses of the parenting juggle.
Anne (Philippa Dunne) and Amanda (Lucy Punch) reunite in Amandaland.Credit: Stan
At the heart of the show was Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin), who was forced to take part in the school community when her mother refused to provide childcare. Motherland also had a terrific ensemble - straight-talking Liz (Diane Morgan); perpetually upbeat (and often pregnant) Anne (Philippa Dunne); high-flyer Meg (Tanya Moddie) and simpering stay-at-home dad Kevin (Paul Ready). Then there was Amanda (Lucy Punch), the posh, overbearing Alpha mum who most of the other mums were slightly afraid of while simultaneously adoring her.
Motherland is no more, but this week we get the next best thing - a spin-off featuring the further adventures of Amanda.
A couple of years have passed, and Amanda has had to settle into a new life – her husband divorced her, her “lifestyle” store (don’t call it a shop) Hygge Tygge closed, and now she’s had to move deeper into suburbia and – the horror - send her kids, Manus and Georgie, now teenagers, to a state school.
Amanda might have been Motherland’s villain, but in this series (in which the only mum from the original is the fabulous Anne, who again has some of the best lines), she’s trying to rebuild her life, including trying to make new “mum chums” and recreating her lifestyle brand on Instagram (“I’m not an influencer, I’m a visual storyteller”). She even has to get an actual retail job at one point, although she prefers to think of it as a “collab”.
Amanda (Lucy Punch) and her toxic mother Felicity (Joanna Lumley) in Amandaland.Credit: Stan
Luckily, Anne’s son is at the same school, and she’s thrilled. The school has a great STEM program, she tells Amanda, cheerfully adding that “the torture scene from A Clockwork Orange was filmed in the playground”.
As well as the friendship between Amanda and Anne (is this the show’s love story?), Amandaland focuses on the dysfunctional relationship between Amanda and her mother, Felicity, again played by Joanna Lumley in a feat of genius casting. Her first words in the series, after knocking on the door of Amanda’s new flat? “Darling, let me in before I get mugged.” She’s as deliciously toxic as ever, especially now they’re growing increasingly co-dependent. More Lumley – especially as essentially an older Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous – can only be a great thing.
Between ingratiating herself with school mum Della (Derry Girls′ Siobhán McSweeney), who runs a hip restaurant, and insulting downstairs neighbour Mal (Samuel Anderson), the school’s football coach, Amanda actually shows a more vulnerable side in this series, even if she expresses it in terms of missing the high ceilings in her old house. “I just don’t know if I’m ready to give up Regency proportions,” she wails to Anne, who offers her sleeve to mop up Amanda’s tears. Motherland fans, trust me: Amandaland is your next binge-watch.
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