Dame Joanna Lumley has revealed that her film crew faced extreme conditions, including a dangerous witch ritual involving fire, while filming her new ITV travel series following the River Danube. The 79-year-old actress described the experience as 'terribly touching, very funny and extreme'.
In the three-part series, Lumley travels from the river's source in Germany's Black Forest to its delta at the Black Sea, passing through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. She admitted she knew little about the Danube before filming, saying: 'I was pretty thick about the Danube.'
During a stop in Romania, Lumley joined a coven of white witches who performed a ceremony with masses of candles. 'The camera boys nearly died from the heat,' she said. The witches gave her an amulet for protection on the rest of her journey.
The climate also proved challenging, with searing heat at the river's mouth and icy cold in the Tatra Mountains straddling Slovakia and Poland. 'It was phenomenally cold,' Lumley recalled. 'When I spoke with the weather man his moustache and eyelashes were covered in ice.'
Despite the hardships, Lumley found moments of joy, including meeting a group of older women running a café in Germany and a troupe of middle-aged gay men performing lederhosen dances in Austria. 'Their kindness and inclusivity touched me very much,' she said, noting the contrast with Austria and Germany's dark history of persecuting gay people.
Reflecting on the journey, Lumley urged others to embrace travel: 'The world is so full of marvels. Everything about this trip was eye-opening.' The series airs on ITV.
