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Review | What to stream this weekend: Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure on BBC sees actress find some surprises on ancient East-West spice trade route

  • India-born actress-turned-presenter follows the ancient spice trade route from Indonesia to Madagascar in Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure on BBC Earth
  • Meanwhile, season two of Netflix K-drama D.P. sees military policemen on the trail of more South Korean soldiers who have gone AWOL and must be apprehended

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A still from “Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure”, which sees the actress follow the old spice trade route. Photo: BBC Studios

Roughly three-quarters of the way into Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure (BBC Earth, now streaming), our ever-effervescent explorer lands on an unsuspected patch of the new Chinese empire.

Lumley – who has quietly stacked up a host of travel-show-presenter credits alongside her more established acting bona fides – is following the old trade route along which spice dealing and spice-race politics shaped today’s world. And she has just chanced upon a startlingly smooth Madagascan mountain road built by Beijing.

Cost: US$157 million.

She is on a four-part trek that began in Indonesia’s fabled Banda Islands, garden of nutmeg and mace, and the scene of vicious, 17th century conflicts and wanton atrocities geared towards filling European coffers.

The always elegant Joanna Lumley in a still from “Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure”. Photo: BBC Studios
The always elegant Joanna Lumley in a still from “Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure”. Photo: BBC Studios

Heat and dust, far-flung ferry journeys, mud, dirt and dodgy motors: nothing fazes the always elegant Lumley, now 77, who could be the reincarnation of an intrepid Victorian lady explorer.

After 20-odd years spent peddling and polishing words in Hong Kong, Stephen McCarty now resides in Britain, from where he scribbles, daydreams and laments the state of the world.
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