Joanna Lumley to star in new ITV travel show

Dame Joanne Lumley will star in a brand-new ITV travel show for which she will embark on a 1,770-mile journey.

The 77-year-old actress - most famous for her role on the BBC sitcom ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ – will journey down the length of the River Danube, which runs across Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.

In an interview with The Sun newspaper, she said: “We're due to travel in the late spring of 2024 and it's incredibly exciting.

“We're due to head across a part of the world with which I'm not that familiar at all, and across all the countries through which the Danube flows.”

ITV bosses have already drawn up the route for the show, including the coast of the Black Sea and Germany’s Black Forest, although they are hesitant to travel to Ukraine due to the ongoing war with Russia.

A TV insider said: “Producers are preparing for the show to start filming soon and while destinations in some countries have already been organised, others are taking more planning.

“The Danube runs the border with Ukraine, and bosses are having to consider how safe and practical it would be for Joanna to film there as the war continues.”

Joanna’s latest hit is the Netflix thriller ‘Fool Me Once’ alongside Michelle Keegan, in which the 36-year-old actress plays an ex-army captain who attempts to unravel the mystery of seeing her murdered husband on a nanny cam.

During an appearance on ‘The Graham Norton Show’, Michelle said: “It was so much fun, and we laughed the whole way through.”

The former ‘Coronation Street’ star also revealed she “just couldn’t bring herself” to swear at her co-star during rehearsals.

Reflecting on the situation whilst appearing on ‘The One Show’, she said: “Honestly, when I read the script, I was like, ‘Oh no, oh no!’

“We had a bit of a laugh, didn’t we, when we were rehearsing? I don’t think I said it when we were in rehearsals, I was like, ‘I can’t! I can’t!’”

Joanna added: “When it’s not used very often, bad language comes … it slaps out of the screen at you, it does.”