Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The television industry is fond of spin-offs, but producing one is rarely as straightforward as repeating the formula that made its parent show a success. For every Better Call Saul, arguably an even stronger series than Breaking Bad, there is a Joey, the Friends sequel so disastrous that it remains a cautionary tale 20 years later. Happily, Amandaland, spun off from the acerbic parenting sitcom Motherland, takes the former route, transforming its origin story into six fresh, inventive and newly hilarious episodes.Following her divorce, Amanda (Lucy Punch) has been forced to move from the affluent west London district of Chiswick to the less wealthy South Harlesden, or \u201cSoHa\u201d, as she insists on rebranding it. In Motherland, Amanda was queen bee, yet here she is, in a flat that is nowhere near a Waitrose, merely a Tesco Metro. She has to get a job, or as she prefers to put it, start a \u201ccollab\u201d with a local business. As a setting for her tragicomic airs and graces, it is perfect. She strives to recreate her old life, but is brought back down to earth by her own circumstances, then cushioned by the fundamentally decent people around her.The children are now at secondary school, meaning the only other parent to cross over from Motherland is poor, browbeaten Anne (Philippa Dunne), Amanda\u2019s former sidekick, whose freedom from her best friend and tormentor was sadly shortlived. Anne is joined by Amanda\u2019s downstairs neighbour Mal (Samuel Anderson), a single dad sweetly navigating his relationship with his son\u2019s stepfather JJ (Ekow Quartey), and the extravagantly awful couple Della and Fi (Siobh\u00e1n McSweeney and Rochenda Sandall), local celebrities in SoHa thanks to Della\u2019s pretentious restaurant, Shin.Amandaland is milder in tone than its spiky predecessor, but that frees it up to be more silly, too. For every clever set-up, there are pratfalls, bawdy double entendres and gags based simply on misheard names. Joanna Lumley reprises her role as Amanda\u2019s casually cruel mother Felicity, and together, Lumley and Punch provide some of the funniest, and most heartfelt scenes. Amanda\u2019s inflated sense of self is often the punchline, but her inability to pull off practically everything she aims for is as touching as it is humiliating, and the series\u2019 conclusion is surprisingly warm. Original British comedy is enjoying a period of strength at the moment, and Amandaland has joined the ranks of the outstanding newcomers.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606On BBC iPlayer now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The television industry is fond of spin-offs, but producing one is rarely as straightforward as repeating the formula that made its parent show a success. For<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":202539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-202538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202540,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202538\/revisions\/202540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}